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WITH THE RED CROSS. 



Three Vassar Girls 



IN 



RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



BY , . 



ELIZABETH W. CHAMPNEY, 

AUTHOR OF "a NEGLECTED CORNER OF EUROPE,'' "THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD,'' "THREE VASSAR 

GIRLS IN ENGLAND," ETC. 



ILLUSTRATED BY "CHAMP" 

And other Distinguished Artists. 




BOSTON: 

ESTES AND LAURIAT, 

PUBLISHERS. 



\ 



n 



JOF CONGRESS I 
IwASHlNGTONi 

Copyright, 1889, 
By 

ESTES AND LaURIAT. 



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% 



^ 



? 



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K 



K^ 




C. J. Peters & Son, 
Typographers and Electrotypers, 
Boston, Mass. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Lord Saunters ii 

II. SaLLIE 21 

III. Lady Saunters 29 

IV. An Unexpected Meeting 38 

V. A Newspaper Correspondent and a Trip to Ragusa 42 

VI. The Adventures Begin 58 

VII. Montenegro 71 

VIII. Lord Saunters is taken Prisoner 93 

IX. Melicent and Captain Muller 104 

X. Greece 113 

XI. First Impressions of Turkey , 131 

XII. St. Petersburg 151 

XIII. Balkan Roses 168 

XIV. Moscow, Nijni-Novgorod, and the Crimea 186 

XV. Shipka Pass 211 

XVI. Plevna, and the Passage of the Balkans 230 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

With the Red Cross Frontispiece 

Lord Saunters and Gus 12 

Gibraltar 13 

Lord Beaconsfield 15 

Spanish Donna 17 

Russian Arms 20 

Sallie 21 

Gus 21 

Greece 24 

The Propylea 25 

Lady Saunters 29 

Algernon Saunters 31 

The Hippodrome 35 

An Unexpected Meeting 38 

Captain Midler 39 

Piazza del Duomo — Court of Diocletian's 

Palace 45 

Ragusa 49 

Mr. Norcross 51 

Peasant Girls 53 

Correspondents on their way to Peco Pav- 

lovitch's Camp 59 

The War Correspondent 61 

Council of War at Peco Pavlovitch's Camp, 63 

A Barbarous Operation 66 

Insurgents in Ambush 67 

Departed Glories 69 

Cousin Trajan 72 

Montenegrin Senator 73 

Montenegrin Scenes 77 

Montenegrin Soldier 81 

Prince Nicholas 84 

Princess Milene 85 

Mr. Ignatieff 86 

Montenegrins 87 

A Turkish Commander 94 

15ashi-Bazouks 95 

Portico of a Cottage in Montenegro ... 99 

Mr. Norcross looked up loi 



PAGE 

Church of Perchtoldsdorf 105 

A Russian Police Agent 107 

Castle of Eisgrub 108 

Melicent 109 

The Danube at Linz no 

Ionic and Corinthian Columns 116 

Sports of Ancient Greece 117 

Penelope 118 

In Doubt 119 

Modern Athens from the Acropolis . . . 121 

Caryatides 123 

The Parthenon 125 

The Temple of the Wingless Victory . . 127 

At the Museum 129 

Sketches at Constantinople 133 

Lord Saunters depressed 135 

Gus's Idea of Mr. Humphrey 135 

Mr. Humphrey appears ...... 133 

English insulted in Constantinople . . . 137 

Student of Robert College 141 

Monument in the British Graveyard, Scu- 
tari 143 

A Family Corner — Turkish Cemetery, 

Scutari 144 

Abd-ul-Aziz 145 

Mourad V 145 

Tomb of Sultan Mahmoud's Favorite 

Horse 146 

Bashi-Bazouks 147 

Drosky-driver 151 

St. Isaac's Church 152 

Bird's-eye View of St. Petersburg ....153 

Statue of Peter the Great 155 

Nicholas Bridge 157 

The Countess Melinoff 1 1;9 

Mrs. Davenport 159 

The Winter Palace 160 

The Grand Duke Nicholas 161 

Dimitri Dimitrievitch 162 



8 



ILL US TEA TIONS. 



PAGE 

A Military Review 163 

A Suspicious Interview 166 

A Marriage Procession in Bulgaria . . . 171 

The Rose Harvest 173 

Interior of Bulgarian Peasant Dwelling . 175 

Princess Nathalie 177 

Prince Milan IV. of Servia 17S 

Servians 179 

Two Ways of Wearing Veils 1S3 

Bucharest 184 

Alexander II., Czar of Russia 187 

A Well-Known Figure 190 

The Granovitaya Palace 193 

Melicent is surprised 194 



PAGE 

Czar Kolokol 195 

Church of Vasili Blagennoy 197 

Calmuck Tartar Maid 205 

The Old Diplomat 209 

The Epaulets returned 211 

Russian Military Types 214 

Cossacks on the Road from Galatz . . . 215 

Russian Officers taking the Turkish Flag . 219 

The Red Cross at Work 223 

Reception of the Czar by the Clergy . . 225 

Passage of Balkans. . 231 

Forgotten 234 

Turkish Crone 235 

Relieving the Guard at Shipka 237 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS 



RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



CHAPTER I. 

LORD SAUNTERS. 

TT was at Gibraltar, in the autumn of 1875, that SalHe and Gus first 
-*- met Lord Saunters and his family. 

The steamer stopped here to coal after its long trip across the 
Atlantic ; and the passengers had an opportunity to land and to inspect 
the fortifications constructed by the English, the famous galleries in 
the Rock, with their great guns commanding the strait and the Spanish 
shore. 

The varied nationalities to be found in the streets and markets 
were extremely interesting. Here a Moor from Africa, in a white 
burnous, stalked majestically by, hardly brushing with his robe the 
cringing Jew who flattened himself against the wall to let him pass. 
In this corner sat a jetty Nubian displaying for sale a basket of pome- 
granates ; and there two Spanish ladies, with lace mantillas thrown over 
their shapely heads, waved their fans gently at a jaunty English officer 
in a gay scarlet and gold uniform ; and marching down another steep 
street to the sound of a wheezy bagpipe was a company of Scotch 
Highlanders ; while the flags of a dozen nations waved from the ship- 
ping in the harbor, all dominated by the power of England. 

" England was pretty 'cute to secure this toll-gate to the Mediterra- 
nean — now, wasn't she ? " Gus remarked, as they steamed away. 



12 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



" England is usually pretty 'cute in her dealings with the foreign 
powers," said a pompous-looking gentleman in a long gray duster, 
who happened to be standing just behind Gus. 

He was a new passenger, who had just come on board with his 
family and quite a suite of attendants. Gus looked up quickly, a little 
taken aback, for he saw instantly that the speaker was an Englishman, 
though he wore a beard instead of the characteristic mutton-chop 
whiskers. The light veil twisted around his hat and the " Murray's 




LORD SAUNTERS AND GUS. 



Guide Book" protruding from one of the side pockets of the Russia 
leather travelling-bag proclaimed his nationality, while the crest 
engraved on the gold handle of his umbrella and the obsequious 
deference shown him implied that he was a " milord." 

Gus straightened himself, and strove to be equal to the occasion. 
" I have always admired the policy of England as exhibited by her 
colonial possessions," he replied, with a dignity which quite matched 
that of the Briton. " I think that you English have treated the North 
American Indian much more fairly than we have." 



LORD SAUNTERS. 



15 



I 

■ The strange gentleman smiled. "You are doubtless an American." 
he said, " though I hardly expected to find an admission from one of 
your nation that England excelled America in anything. I fear, too, 




LORD BEACONSFIELD. 

that whatever humanity we may have exercised to the natives of our 
colonies is more a matter of policy on our part than of principle." 

" Is not humanity always the best policy, sir?" 

"Well, no: a long experience in the diplomatic service has hardly 
taught me that. I have made the Eastern Question the study of my 
life, and the policy of England seems to be inextricably intertwined with 



1 5 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IiY RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

•the permanence of the Turkish power ; and the Turks, you know, are 
not noted for their humanity." 

"Now, that is just what I want to know more about!" Gus 
exclaimed eagerly. "The Eastern Question — what is it? We see 
so much about it in the papers nowadays. Is there going to be a war 
in Turkey? Excuse me, sir, but I am very deeply interested. You 
see, my sister and I are going to Turkey, and of course I would like 
to know whether it will be quite safe for her to stay ; and if you are in 
the diplomatic service you must know what England is going to do." 

The gentleman smiled at the boy's eagerness and volubility. " I 
am not at liberty to divulge any state secrets," he said, " but of this at 
least I can assure you, there will be no war in Turkey this year. My 
friend. Lord Beaconsfield, heads the pro-Turkish party in the English 
cabinet, and will control the policy of England. All sympathy with 
this petty insurrection in Herzegovina is mere stuff and nonsense. It 
is possibly true that the Turks are a little hard on the European 
provinces, but any talk of atrocities is mere Russian humbug. The 
situation is just this : Russia and England are each extending their 
possessions into Asia, and are formidable rivals. Turkey stands in 
Russia's way ; and it is England's policy to help Turkey. Russia would 
like to incite the Turkish possessions in Europe to rebellion, and assist 
in breaking up the Turkish Empire ; but, my boy, England will not 
permit it." The gentleman brought his jaws together with a snap. 
He had evidently perfect faith in England's power to rule the universe. 
The boy's face fell. " Then, it will be perfectly safe for us to travel ip 
European Turkey ? " he asked, with a not very happy expression of 
countenance, — " no chance of the Servians rising, or any Turkish 
massacres, or that sort of thing ? " 

" Not the least. Mukhtar Pacha will soon put an end to the 
present trouble in Herzegovina, and peace will be restored." 

Gus sighed. " Sallie will be glad," he said slowly : " she's dead 
set against war." 



jl 




SPANISH DOXXA. 



LORD SAU.XTERS. jg 

" Who is Sallie ? " 

" She is my sister, sir." 

" A missionary ? " 

" Oh, dear, no! We are travelHng for pleasure, sir, and information. 
— not that Salhe needs it in the least. She was at Paris with friends 
at the time of the siege. I have always been provoked to think that I 
was not old enough to be with her. She is on her way now to join 
these same friends, — Mrs. Davenport and her daughter Melicent, who 
have been living abroad all this time, and are at Vienna. I don't think 
I shall care anything about them, for they are very stylish people, and 
society people are always sure to be stupid, you know ; but there is 
another friend of Sallie's down in European Turkey, who is a missionar)-, 
and we want to get to her, if we can, and persuade her to come back. 
It was awfully foolish of her to go out there, Sallie thinks, and danger- 
ous too ; and that's w^hy I've been boring you with all these questions." 

" You have not annoyed me at all, my boy," replied the English- 
man. " You seem to be a very plucky pair of young people. I would 
like to meet your sister, and you will, perhaps, do me the honor ot 
presenting me to her." 

Gus hesitated. He had run on with perfect freedom ; but intro- 
ducing this stranger to his sister was another matter. "I — I — Sallie 
is rather shy about meeting strangers ; that is, she is very busy morn- 
ings, and she always takes a nap in the afternoon," he stammered. 

" I see," the elder gentleman replied good-naturedly. " You are 
quite right : it is not good form to be too intimate with unknown people. 
Possibly my wife may be more successful with your sister than I. I 
like you all the better for your care of her. There is the dinner-bell. 
Join me on deck whenever you care to do so. My son Algernon is 
quite an Orientalist, and he will enjoy talking with you about Turke)-." 

Lord Saunters seemed to have a mania of dislike for the Russian 
coat-of-arms. They saw the Hag flying on a Russian vessel as they 
steamed away from Gibraltar, and he remarked that the two-headed 



20 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



monstrosity seemed more like a great, greedy vulture to him than an 
eagle. He told with evident relish the story of the Russian prince 
who, in hunting, brought down a bird, and inquired of his attendants 
what manner of wild-fowl this was. 

" Your Highness has killed an eagle," replied the squire. 

" Oh, no ! " exclaimed the prince, whose knowledge of ornithology 
was largely derived from the royal arms, " you cannot deceive me. Do 
I not see that it has only one head ! " 

Having finished his story with a cordial nod, the old man ambled 
briskly away. 




RUSSIAN ARMS. 



SALLIE. 



21 



CHAPTER II. 



SALLIE. 




SALLIE. 



^ I ^HE tour which Sallie and her brother were 
-*- now taking had only been decided upon after 
long deliberation. Gus had finished his prepara- 
tion for college and had successfully passed the 
Harvard examinations ; but his father thought 
/ , him too young to enter, and it was decided that 
m European travel would advantageously fill in the 
interim. 

Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Benton could conven- 
iently leave home ; but as Sallie had travelled in Europe before this, 
and was a girl of clear judgment as well as something of a stickler 
for the proprieties, they had perfect confidence in their daughter's 
ability to conduct such a tour, and everything 
had been left to her management. Gus had, at 
first, manifested little enthusiasm. 

" You had such a nice time in Paris," he 
said, " that you will want to go there again, and 
I hate French and despise shopping." 

" Gus dear, you are quite wrong," his sister had 
replied. " I haven't a bit of shopping to do, and 
just because I have been to Paris I do not care to 
go again. ' Fresh fields and pastures new,' say I." 

"And I know what that means," Gus replied moodily: "you mean 
to go to Germany, and if there is anything I dislike more than French 
it's German. There never was a better thing written than what Mark 




2 2 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

Twain said about German grammar, with its compound nouns and 
its genders and cases and all that nonsense. Sounds like a parcel of 
horses talking ; but those German officers were so polite when you got 
caught within their lines during the siege of Paris that I've no doubt 
you're pining to hie away to the banks of the Rhine and see your Von 
Lindenthals and your Lieutenant Schwarzes and your precious Captain 
Miillers once more." 

Sallie flushed indignantly. " Germany is just the one country I 
insist on not visiting," she replied dryly, " and Captain Miiller the very 
last man whom I desire to meet." 

Gus looked at her in surprise. " You don't say ! " he remarked, 
and then there was silence between them for the space of just one 
minute, during which brief time Sallie mentally reviewed her last 
European tour, and especially her stay in Versailles with Madame de 
Beaumont while the great German army was waiting for the surrender 
of Paris. She thought of the kindness of the German officers who 
were quartered at Madame de Beaumont's, of the respect and consid- 
eration shown to them both during those terrible days of siege, — of 
Captain Mliller's honest face, and of something he had said to her, and 
then she flushed indignantly as she thought, " No, no, he never really 
loved me, or he would have been willing to leave the army for my sake 
when I told him that I thought it was wicked, and could never marry a 
soldier." 

"Oh! were you speaking? what did you say, Gus?" she asked, 
as she awoke from her reverie. 

" I asked you to deign to indicate a country which you would like 
to visit." 

" It really doesn't matter, dear. We are sure to have a good time, 
you and I together, anywhere. Where would you like to go ? " 

" If I had my own way I would take a cruise with Captain Kidd to 
the Cannibal Islands. Since that is not possible, if there is to be war 
anywhere in Europe let us choose that country." 



SALLIE. 



23 



Sallle was silent for a moment, and then replied, — 

" The papers say that the situation is a little cloudy in Turkey." 

She mentioned the country not quite at random. Alice was in 
Turke)', and she felt sure that this was a countr\- where she would be 
quite sure not to meet Captain Miiller, little dreaming that her fate (or 
was it not Providence ?) was leading directly toward the meeting which 
she wished to avoid. 

"Well, let's choose Turke)-, then," Gus replied. "I want to go 
somewhere where there is a chance for adventure, and I don't want to 
do the every-day, regulation thing when I go to Europe. What the 
papers say sounds promising ; ma)'be we can get kidnapped by some 
of the bandits, or we may tumble into a battle somewhere." 

"War is a frightful thing." said Sallie musingly. "I saw more 
than I wanted of it at Versailles. I hope that there ne\'er will be 
another war on the face of the earth, but there is one reason why I 
would like to go to European Turkey." 

" I know. You would like to do Greece on the way. It would be 
nice for your art to stop at Athens and sketch the Acropolis. Well, 
I'll stand it, if )ou will promise on your sacred honor not to make the 
visit an instructive one." 

" I would like to stop in Greece very much," Sallie admitted, "but 
my dearest friend, Alice Newton, has gone out to Turkey somewhere as 
a missionary." 

Gus whistled. " It must be an uncommonly stupid sort of a life," 
he said. 

"Yes," Sallie replied, " I am afraid it is. Dear Alice was a saint; 
one of the loveliest girls I ever knew. If she had been a Romanist. 
she would have taken the veil. As she was a Presbyterian, she did the 
nearest thine to it which she could, and renounced the world with all 
its pomps and vanities. I was very angry with her for becoming a 
missionary ; but her mother died, and her father married again, and she 
hadn't any younger sisters to fit for Vassar, or a brother to plague lier 



24 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



and to plague In turn, and, I have no doubt, she felt as if there was no 
room for her in the world." 

"Done!" exclaimed Gus. "We will go to Turkey, and, if you 
want to, on the way we will take in Greece. I'll loaf around Mars Hill 




GREECE. 



while you are making your sketches, and see If I can scare up a few 
adventures with the bandits, and then we will go to Turkey and hunt 
up your missionary friend and rescue her, I've no doubt that she is 
sick of the country by this time, and we will bring her back In triumph, 
and you and she shall set up a studio together In Boston. You said 
she used to paint when you were In France together, didn't you ? I 




-^^ 



>n 









^ IP y 



< 



SALLIE. 27 

shall run in to see you every Saturday, and get you to translate my 
Greek for me, and we will have no end of fun." 

"That is a fine prospect," laughed Sallie, "only I am afraid we 
shall not be able to persuade Alice into it. If she has given up art, it 
is because she considers it her duty to be a missionary, and Alice 
always placed duty before everything else. However, we will try our 
best, for I like your plan, Gus, very much indeed. It would be delight- 
ful only to see her again, and talk of the days when we were Three 
Vassar Girls in France." 

"Where is your third crony, Miss Davenport?" 

" Melicent and her mother are in Vienna. I would like very much 
'^ to visit them on our way to Bulgaria. 

" Perhaps Mrs. Davenport and Melicent would go with us ; that 
would simplify everything." 

" Humph ! I don't know about that. We don't want too many 
women ; besides, I thought that Miss Davenport was married to the 
war correspondent, Mr. Osborne." 

" War correspondents do not make money enough to marry upon 
so quickly ; and, though Melicent is wealthy, James Osborne is too 
much of a man to allow her to support him. When I last heard from 
her, he had gone with the Russians, on the Khivan campaign, into the 
heart of Asia." 

" He must be a plucky sort of fellow. If there should be a 
war in Turkey, don't you think that he would probably be sent 
there ? " 

" He would, doubtless, be there ; but I fancy we would not, for 
father and mother would insist on our leaving the country in case 
hostilities were declared," 

"Pshaw! I hadn't thought of that; but perhaps we will be lucky 
enough to get caught, as you were in the German lines." 

The plans thus discussed crystallized in due time. Friends had 
been found who were going to Vienna, and for the sake of the supposed 



28 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

advantage of their company Sallie had determined to make the visit 
to MeHcent first. 

A sea voyage is a great revealer of latent selfishness; and the 
Greysons, their fellow-travellers, proved to be a greater trial than 
comfort. 

It was on the autumn day that we have described, that Gus enjoyed 
his first glimpse of Europe, at Gibraltar. He had told Sallie of his 
interview with Lord Saunters, but had wisely omitted to report his lord- 
ship's request for an introduction, fearing that his sister would think 
him indiscreet. He secretly felt that he had been too familiar, and 
resolved to avoid this fault in future. 



LADY SAUNTERS. 



29 



CHAPTER III. 



LADY SAUNTERS. 




LADY SAUNTERS. 



SALLIE encountered the English lady on 
the following day. Lady Saunters had 
evidently had a line of conduct suggested 
to her by her husband, for she was seen 
by Gus to make vigorous signs of inter- 
rogation across the table to her lieo^e on 
the American girl's appearance at break- 
fast. Sallie went immediately on deck after 
the meal, and my lady soon after followed. 
She looked at the young people irreso- 
lutely, and sank into her steamer-chair. 
" She makes me think of Sennacherib," Gus remarked, " with his 
costume all glittering with purple and gold." 

" Byron says ' cohorts,' not ' costume,' " corrected Sallie. 
" Never mind Sennacherib. There she is, and if she isn't bearing 
down on us this minute, like the wolf on the fold ! " 

The lady had, in fact, risen, and, accelerated by the pitching of the 
ship, was sidling rapidly toward them. She caught at the rail, righted 
herself, and affably extended a small, enamelled bonbonniere, which 
Sallie at first mistook for a snuff-box. 

"Peptic lozenges, my dear," she explained, — "a specific against 
sea-sickness." 

Sallie good-humoredly partook of a lozenge. There was something 
in the lady's voice which was strangely familiar, and she looked at her 
inquiringly. 



20 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

" My husband tells me that you are an American, my dear ; and as 
we travelled in America two years ago, and met with such uniform 
courtesy everywhere, especially from a family by the name of Benton, 
whom we met in the Yellowstone Park, who rescued us from great 
annoyance " — 

Sallie gave a gasp of surprise. " Lady Saunters ! " she exclaimed, 
" do you not recognize me ? " 

Her ladyship raised her lorgnette. " It is, no, surely it cannot be, 
little Sallie Benton ? " 

" Have I grown old so rapidly, dear Lady Saunters? But, indeed. 
I can hardly tell you how pleasant it seems to meet a friend." 

" It is very agreeable for us as well, my dear. We have just come 
from England, and are on our way to Athens, where' we expect to 
remain until the arrival of the Prince of Wales on his way to India. 
The Prince has invited my second son, Algernon, to go out with him. 
Alfred, our eldest, is in England. We have plenty of time, and intend 
first to make a little stop at Venice and at Trieste." 

"My brother and I are also on our way to Trieste," Sallie remarked, 
*' so our journey lies for a little way in the same direction. We may 
possibly visit Greece later. Perhaps you can kindly give me some 
inform.ation in regard to Athens." 

The American college for the study of the Greek language and 
archaeology, of whose advantages Vassar girls have now a right to 
avail themselves, was not then established at Athens, and Sallie felt 
quite doubtful as to this part of her trip. 

" If you were only ready to go on to Greece now, my dear," Lady 
Saunters replied, " I might be able to be of some service to you ; and 
it seems to me a serious undertaking for a young woman to travel 
about alone. However, now that we have fallen in together, and our 
routes lie in the. same direction, I shall be pleased to afford you any 
protection in my power." 

Sallie colored : she was inclined to feel indignant, but she recog- 



LADV SAL'A TEA'S. 



31 



nized the fact that her ladyship's remarks were meant kindly, and had 
a show of reason. She explained that they were nominally under the 
care of the Greysons, but that, so far, they had proved a great care to 
her, and she would be very happy when she could exchange Mrs. 
Greyson's chaperonage for that of Mrs. Davenport. 

" Exchange it now for mine, my dear ! " exclaimed Lady Saunters. 
" I will explain to Mrs. Greyson that I am the friend of )our mamma, 
and I am sure that she will be satisfied with our credentials." 

As Sallie knew that her parents had been pleasantly impressed 
by Lord and Lady Saunters, 
the arrangement was quickly 
made. Lady Saunters was 
peculiar, but she was good, 
and Sallie was grateful for 
the opportunity of availing 
herself of the companionship 
of a lady older and more ex- 
perienced than herself. Lord 
Saunters was duly presented, 
and Algernon, who was an ex- 
tremely well-bred young man, 
with a listless, world-weary air, 
to which Sallie at once took 
mental exception. " I do not 
like you," she said to herself: 
" you are a prig, and we 
shall not get on at all." 

While she was registering this prophecy, Algernon Saunters was 
thinkine, " What a bore that mother should have taken it into her head 
to pick up this young person, with her disagreeably American manner ! 
I shall have as litde to do with her as possible." 

He accordingly retired to the cabin, where he devoted himself to 




ALGERNON SAUNTERS. 



^2 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

writing up his journal, — an occupation in which he always intrenched 
himself when menaced with uncongenial company. The others grew 
to understand this, and Gus would say, " He is seeking the seclusion 
which his journal grants." 

Gus had not taken the Yellowstone trip, and he was much surprised 
when Lord Saunters claimed Sallie as an old acquaintance. " Never 
mind, my boy," said his lordship : " you were right, quite right, in 
guarding your sister." 

They were transferred at Palermo to another steamer, bound up the 
Adriatic to Venice. Sallie was pleased to find that Lord and Lady 
Saunters planned to spend two days here ; and visions of floating 
about the city in a gondola, of visiting St. Mark's and the Ducal Palace, 
danced through her brain. But this was not Lady Saunters's errand in 
Venice. She had stopped simply to buy some Venetian point-lace. 
Algernon Saunters also expressed his antipathy for Venice. " Such a 
beastly, damp place, you know. I can never get over the feeling that 
the city is suffering from an inundation." 

When Gus inquired if he meant to visit the picture galleries, he 
replied that no one ever went that dreary round but once, to be able to 
say that he had seen this and that, and that he was thankful that a 
conscientious governess had dragged him through the pilgrimage at 
the mature age of six, and that one of the penances of life was 
performed. 

In spite of thereby confessing that she was visiting Venice for the 
first time, Sallie bravely visited the principal places of interest, remain- 
ing so long entranced before Titian's masterpieces that she was late to 
dinner ; but, altogether, the glimpse at Venice was a very unsatisfactory 
one. 

" I wish we could stay a month here," said Gus. 

"Yes," replied Sallie regretfully, "and I presume that at the end of 
the month we would want still more to remain a year. And what 
would become of our Turkish expedition ? " 



LADY SAUNTERS. ,^ 

As they embarked for Trieste, Algernon Saunters admitted that he 
would have preferred making a trip across the Adriatic to the little 
republic of Montenegro. " Why, that is supposed to be a hot-bed of 
revolt and conspiracy against the Turks," said Gus. 

" True," replied the young man ; " and for that very reason I have 
a great curiosity to see these plucky Montenegrins, who, in their 
little, star-shaped republic, a mere pinhead on the map of Europe, have 
defied the Turkish power so long and so successfully." 

Sallie looked up with surprise ; it was the first time that Algernon 
had expressed interest in any subject. 

"They have set a most mischievous example to Herzegovina and 
Servia," Lord Saunters remarked, " and are really the spark in the 
great gunpowder mine which would shake all Europe but for the 
repressing hand of Great Britain." 

"That is it," remarked Algernon. " I have a haunting feeling that 
if I should look into this matter I would inevitably find myself inter- 
ested in the under dog in the fight ; and might even come out on the 
wrong side of British interests, which would never do, you know. My 
only safety as a member of a conservative family lies in ignorance." 

" It seems to me," said Sallie hesitatingly, " that a high position 
and wide influence such as yours involve you in grave responsibility. 
I do not see how you dare to neglect investigating such a matter." 

Algernon flushed slighdy. "It is fortunate for my peace of mind 
that I do not possess your morbidly active American conscience," he 
remarked coldly. 

Sallie bit her lip. She felt that she had said too much ; but Gus 
could not take the hint, and condnued impulsively, " I think. Lord 
Saunters, that there is something magnificent in those Montenegrins 
maintaining their independence in that way, and I don't see why 
England objects to the Servians and Bulgarians forming independent 
states, if they want to so much." 

" Ah ! that is the Eastern Ouesdon again." replied Lord Saunters. 



-,. THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

o4 

" You Americans are mad on the subject of independence, but there 
are other considerations involved here, of far greater importance. As 
Mr. Pitt so well explained, England's policy it is to preserve the balance 
of power in Europe. No matter what may be the atrocities of the 
Turks, their power must be bolstered up by England, or there will be 
no barrier in the way of Russia's advance into Asia, and her ultimate 
seizure of our empire in India." 

Gus whistled. " So that's the idea," he said ; " but wouldn't India 
be just as well off under Russian as under English rule ?" 

Lord Saunters turned purple ; and Lady Saunters, who had been 
rummaging in her reticule, handed her husband some pellets. 

" Now, my dear," she remarked persuasively, " you know you 
always take Niix when Mr. Gladstone speaks. • Really, Master 
Benton, I must request you not to bring up these exciting topics. 
It is almost as bad for my husband as attendance on Parliament. 
His physician has absolutely prohibited politics on this trip, — politics 
and pork-pie, and my poor husband is so devoted to both." 

Lady Saunters's care of her husband would have been touching if 
it had been less absurd. For some reason not understood by the 
Bentons, she imagined that Friday was a more trying day for her 
husband than any other. It may have been the day on which, when 
in England, he devoted most attention to parliamentary debates. Gus 
pretended to imagine that Lady Saunters belonged to a new order of 
religionists, similar to the Seventh-day Baptists, and that she observed 
Friday as a sacred day of rest. Certainly she kept it with a more than 
Sabbatical rigidity. 

On Friday, at breakfast. Lady Saunters watched her husband's 
plate with a keenness which must have been very exasperating to 
her victim. 

" No hsh," she would say to the waiter. " It is a relic of Romish 
superstition to eat fish on Friday. Besides, fish contains phosphorus, 
and is very stimulating to the brain." 



LADY SAUNTERS. ^7 

"My dear" (this to her husband), "you are surely not going to 
take curry ; you know it is Friday." 

On Friday, Lady Saunters substituted readings from translations of 
Latin authors or from Hamerton's " Intellectual Life," which she car- 
ried with her, for the morning newspaper. 

"The newspapers," she confided to Sallie, "so often irritate my 
husband, while I have observed that readings from Virgil, my readings 
especially, are apt to have a soothing and sleep-inducing effect." 

Lady Saunters's readings frequently produced a desire to sleep in all 
who heard her. Her husband invariably covered his patient visage with 
his handkerchief at the beginning of this ordeal, and sleep soon rescued 
him from the infliction. These Friday readings were uninterrupted by 
sea or land travel, and it was entirely owing to the fact that the day 
after their arrival in Trieste haj^pened to be a Friday that Sallie met 
Captain MiAller. 

"What pleased you most in Venice?" Algernon Saunters asked 
of Gus. 

"The bronze horses of Lysippus," the boy replied, "above the 
Cathedral of St. Mark's." 

" If you go to Constantinople," said the young man, " you will see 
the hippodrome where they once stood beside the race-track of the 
Emperor Constantine surrounded by the best chariot horses of the 
empire, where the donkeys of the Mussulman now congregate." 



38 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



CHAPTER IV. 



AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 



SALLIE had mentioned to Lady Saunters at breakfast that she was 
hungry for some American newspapers. 
" Sh ! " exclaimed my lady, pointing to her husband ; and after 
breakfast Lady Saunters explained that on any other day she would 

have asked her husband to send for them 
to the office of the Austrian Lloyd's Steam- 
ship Company. 

" Gus and I can get them," said Sallie ; 
" we would like the walk." 

" I fancy nothing can happen to you," 
she said dubiously, as they set out. 

Gus laughed heartily as soon as they 
were out of hearing. " The very idea of 
anything happening to you, Sallie ! " 

" It is absurd," she replied, " but the 
good woman means it kindly," 

They walked down the Corso, the prin- 
cipal thoroughfare, and found their way 
after a time to the Tergesteum, so named 
from the ancient Roman name of the city, 
a handsome building containing the steamer offices, a grand ball-room, 
and several reading-rooms. 

"I wonder whether ladies are admitted," queried Sallie. 

" I will find out," said Gus, and he accosted an officer who was 

passing. This gentleman turned politely, and was about to give the 




AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 



AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 



39 



desired information when his eye fell upon Sallie, and he stopped 
in the middle of his sentence, a look of the utmost surprise on his 
features. Sallie in turn gave a litde gasp, and then laughed merrily. 

" Why, Captain Mliller ! " she exclaimed, " you are the last man that 
I expected to meet here." " Or wanted to," added Gus, under his 
breath. But, for a young woman who had certainly made this 
announcement, Miss Sallie's behavior during the next hour or so was 
most contradictory and mystifying. 

Captain Mliller, recovering from his astonishment, offered to show 
them the Tergesteum ; and, although Sallie professed herself deeply 
interested in everything, Gus ascertained afterward that she had paid 
no attention to the building. The inspection lasted a long time, and as 
they left, Sallie remarked that they were going to the Byzantine Cathe- 
dral in the old part of the city, and Captain Muller offered to show 
them the way. Gus was surprised that 
she should accept this offer, for they had 
looked out the way together on a map 
which Sallie had in her pocket at that 

moment. Moreover, it soon transpired 

that Captain Muller had never visited 

the cathedral, and that either he did not 

know the route or was purposely making 

it as long as possible ; but when Gus 

suggested that his sister should refer to 

the map, the sly puss scowled at him in 

a manner which show^ed that she knew 

perfectly well what she was about. They 

reached the cathedral at last, but when 

Gus would have drap-o:ed them at once to the spot where the guide- 

book told them that the stones with old Roman inscriptions were built 

into the wall, Sallie declared that she was too tired to take another 

step, and seated herself in a corner sheltered by a confessional. There 



iii/i. 




CAPTAIN MULLER. 



AQ THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. j 

was no one In the church, and they chatted In a low tone, Gus 
remaining with them for a time, but finally strolled away to make a 
note of the Inscriptions. 

"And how does it happen that you are here In Trieste?" Sallle 
asked of the captain. 

" I have a furlough," he explained, " and am visiting an aunt." 

"Then you are still In the army?" He was not in uniform, and at 
first Sallle had presumed too much from this circumstance. 

" Yes, I am still In the army. There is no other career open to 
me, you know. Do you still retain your prejudice against everything 
military ? " 

" Yes, I have grown to hate war more than ever, and I am sorry 
that a friend of mine should have adopted It as his profession." 

Captain Mliller was silent for a moment. He wanted to tell her 
that he had come to think as she did, and that he was ready, If she 
could only reward him by becoming his wife, to give up his commission 
and seek some other career, but it seemed to him that such a declara- 
tion would sound very abrupt, and that it ought to be worked up to. 
" My sister has married a Russian nobleman," he remarked, " and has 
offered to secure me a position In Russia. Do you think you will visit 
Russia? I would like to have you know my sister." 

"You are very kind, but it is hardly possible. We are on our 
way now to visit Mrs. Davenport and her daughter, who are In 
Vienna." 

" How I would like to see them again ! You must let me bring my 
aunt to call upon you before you leave, and show you about Trieste." 

" I am sorry, but we leave to-morrow." 

"So soon? There is much that Is interesting In this old Austrian 
seaport." 

In spite of the fact that they were quite alone, their conversation 
was constrained. There was a great barrier between them, which each 
wished away, but neither knew how to remove. Gus came back with 



AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 



41 



the inscriptions, and the opportunity was gone. " It is awfully late," 
he remarked. " What do you suppose Sennacherib will say ? " 

" Let me escort you to your hotel," said the captain. 

" Indeed, there is no need of it," Sallie replied, hastily producing at 
this late juncture the map. " Gus and I are quite used to making our 
way about alone." 

She spoke so earnestly that Captain Miiller perceived that for 
some reason his company was not desired. They went down the steps 
of the cathedral together, ^and he bowed politely, saying simply, ''Aiif 
iviederseheny 

His brain was in a tumult. He had thought that he had forgotten 
Sallie, but at this chance meeting all the old feelings rushed back tem- 
pestuously. " She must reverse her refusal," he said to himself. " I 
shall try again, and this time I shall succeed." 

But what opportunity had he for a second trial ? She had said that 
they were to leave Trieste on the next morning, presumably for Vienna. 
He consulted a railway guide, and quickly decided upon the train which 
they would probably take. He then purchased one first-class ticket for 
this train, and, returning to his aunt's residence, informed that aston- 
ished woman that he had just heard that his old general was in Vienna, 
and wished to see him there. 

He quieted his uneasy conscience with the thought that he was 
willing to recognize Sallie as his commanding officer from this time 
forward, and he hoped with all his heart that she really wished to meet 
him. 

Frau Miiller bustled about packing her nephew's lunch-basket, with 
true Austrian providence. " Such a summons bodes good luck," she 
said pleasantly. " I should not be surprised if you were going to be 
promoted." 

" I hope so," Captain Miiller replied, a great light shining in his 
eyes. 



A2 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



CHAPTER V. 

.A NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENT AND A TRIP TO RAGUSA. 

SALLIE and Gus walked toward their hotel for some time in silence. 
Sallie was thinking self- reproachfully, "What a foolish girl I am! 
Captain Miiller is still in the army, a fact that shows that he does not 
care for me. I did not intend ever to see him again. I must not, 
since meeting him can make me so unhappy." 

Gus interrupted her reverie. " Sallie, I am ashamed of you ! " 

"Yes, Gus?" 

"You have been behaving badly, and you know it. I did not think 
my sister was capable of flirting." 

"Flirting!" 

" I should like to know what else you call the way you have just 
been going on, — letting this German officer know where we are 
going, and when. I would not be surprised if we met him on the 
train to-morrow." 

" Do you think so ? I hope not. Really, Gus, I never wish to 
meet him again." 

" So you have said before ; but I must say that your actions hardly 
bear out your words, and I don't see how you are going to avoid it 
now." 

"We might take a different train. We will change our plans in 
some way to avoid the meeting." 

On arriving at the hotel, they found, much to their surprise, that 
Lord Saunters had arranged an excursion which exactly fitted into their 
present mood. 



A NFAVSPAPER CORRESPONDENT. — TO RAGUSA. ^^ 

Lady Saunters looked flurried and anxious. " Such an unfortunate 
occurrence!" she confided to SalHe. "Alory has met an old friend, a 
newspaper correspondent, — think of it, my dear, of all persons in the 
world, — and has introduced him to his father, and he has been excit- 
ing him sadly. He actually proposes that we shall make a trip to 
Montenegro, to see those horrid conspirators." 

"We can go very comfortably," Algernon insisted, "by a little 
steamer of the Austrian Lloyds which runs down the Dalmatian coast 
to Cattaro in four days. Then, I think that Miss Benton would enjoy 
the trip. She can return to Trieste with perfect safety, and it will give 
her something quite out of the common. Then, too, it is quite on 
our way to Athens. There is an excellent hotel at Cattaro, the Maria 
Teresa, and you ladies can remain there, if you prefer, while we make 
the horseback excursion to Montenegro, though I hope )'ou will decide 
to accompany us. Mr. Osborne is a delightfully entertaining man. 
You ought to know him." 

Sallie had never seen Algernon Saunters so enthusiastic, and he 
had certainly never before manifested the least interest in her plans ; 
but she hardly noticed this circumstance, for her ear had caught a 
familiar name. 

" Mr. Osborne ! " she exclaimed. "Is it the war correspondent, 
James Osborne ? He is an old acquaintance of mine also, and is to 
marry my friend, Melicent Davenport. He is one of the most disinter- 
ested and self-sacrificing of men. I am so glad that you are going with 
him ! You will gain some entirely new ideas, I am sure, and you may 
be perfectly certain that whatever James Osborne tells you is reliable. 
He has such a sense of even-handed justice all round, and is never 
carried away by impulses." 

Lord Saunters smiled, and my lady remarked incredulously, — 

" But you are not at all certain that this newspaper correspondent 
whom my husband has picked up is the ver)' perfect person of whom 
you are speaking. I have a horror of all newspaper men : they are 



44 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

perpetually turning one's preconceived notions upside down. I am 
positive that the world would be much better off without newspapers." 

"My dear mother," remarked Algernon, "listen to what your 
favorite modern writer, Mr. Hamerton, says about them ; " and Lord 
Saunters opened the "Intellectual Life" and read aloud, "'News- 
papers are to the whole civilized world what the daily house-talk is to 
the members of a household ; they keep up our daily interest in each 
other, they save us from the evils of isolation. To live as a member 
of the great white race, that has filled Europe and America and colo- 
nized or conquered whatever other territories it has been pleased to 
occupy, it is necessary that every man should read his daily newspaper. 
Why are the French peasants so bewildered and at sea, so out of place, 
in the modern world ? It is because they never read a newspaper. 
And why are the inhabitants of the United States so much more capa- 
ble of concerted political action, so much more alive and modern, so 
much more interested in new discoveries of all kinds, and capable of 
selecting and utilizing the best of them ? It is because the newspaper 
penetrates everywhere. 

" ' In times when great historical events are passing before our eyes, 
the journalist is to the future historians what the African traveller is to 
the map-makers. His work is the fresh record of an eye-witness, and 
enables us to become ourselves spectators of the mighty drama of the 
world. Never was this service so well rendered as it is now, by corre- 
spondents who achieve heroic feats of bodily and mental prowess, expos- 
ing themselves to the greatest dangers, and writing much and well 
in circumstances the most unfavorable to literary composition. How 
vividly the English war correspondents brought before us the great 
conflict between Germany and France ! What a romantic achievement, 
worthy to be sung in heroic verse, was the finding of Livingstone by 
Stanley ! Yet, with your contempt for newspapers, you would lose all 
this profitable entertainment, and seek, instead of it, the accounts of 
former epochs, written, in most cases, by men in libraries, who had not 



A AEirSPAPER CORRESPO.\DE.\T.~ TO RAG US A. aj 

seen the sovereigns they wrote about, nor talked with the people whose 
condition they attempted to describe. You have a respect for these 
accounts because they are printed in books, and bound in leather, and 
entitled " history," whilst you despise the direct observation of a man 
like Erdan, because he is only a journalist, and his letters are published 
in a newspaper,' " 

"Did Hamerton write that?" asked Lady Saunters. "Does //e 
praise newspaper men anci — and A/nenca?is in that way ?" 

"He certainly does, and" — looking at a card which a servant 
handed him — "you shall have the opportunity of judging of Mr. 
Osborne for yourself, for here he is." 

"And he is our Mr. Osborne! I was sure of it!" Sallie exclaimed 
delightedly, frankly giving the journalist her hand. " Dear Lady Saun- 
ters, he wrote some of those very letters to English papers, relative to 
the siege of Paris, which Mr. Hamerton praises so highly." 

Lady Saunters received the correspondent graciously, and on the 
next morning the party embarked on a small steamer for the Dalmatian 
coast at precisely the same hour that Captain Miiller excitedly sprang 
upon the Vienna train. We cannot say that Sallie had no self-accusing 
or half-regretful thoughts as she watched the prow of the steamer cut- 
ting the blue Adriatic, but she was a girl who was accustomed to keep 
a strong rein upon her own feelings. " I am not going to break my 
heart for the sake of the captain," she kept saying resolutely to herself, 
as she listened smilingly and replied intelligently to Mr. Osborne's 
explanations of the state of affairs in the Turkish provinces and his 
descriptions of points on the coast. 

Their first stop on their second day was at Spalatro, famed for the 
ruins of Diocletian's villa. Fergusson. in his " History of Architecture," 
says that this is the only Roman palace of which sufficient remains are 
left to enable us to judge of its extent or arrangements, and that it 
gives us a most exalted idea of what the splendor of the imperial 
palace at Rome must have been, when we find one emperor — neither 



48 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



the richest nor the most powerful — building for his retirement a villa 
surpassing in size, as it did in magnificence, most of the modern palaces 
of Europe. 

" I wonder whether he was happy here," Sallie asked, as they 
threaded their way between the Corinthian capitals, 

" I think we need not envy him," James Osborne replied, " for he 
was old and sick in body. Do you not notice that the two principal 
apartments in the villa are a temple to ^sculapius and his own mau- 
soleum ? It seems to say that he had built the temple to the deity 
of the physicians as a last hope, but with very little certainty of his 
recovery." 

" Poor Diocletian ! " Sallie murmured. They were pacing the long 
and splendid gallery which extends along the entire seaward side of 
the palace. "What a magnificent view we have from this arcade, and 
its being placed here shows that the emperor must have appreciated its 
beauty. How often he must have walked to and fro here, looking 
away to Italy ! " 

Lady Saunters condescended to be interested, and asked her hus- 
band why the ruins had not long since been carried to London and set 
up in the South Kensington Museum. 

" Do arrange for it, my dear. I am sure they are a great deal more 
interesting than those broken-nosed things which Lord Elgin brought 
back." 

" Unfortunately, the Austrian Government might have something to 
say if in this instance I joined the Societe pour le Vol des Monumens 
Anciens," Lord Saunters replied good-naturedly. 

Their next landing-place was Ragusa, for here Mr. Osborne wished 
to meet Peco Pavlovitch, a leader of the Montenegrins, who had 
sallied out to the assistance of the insurgfent Herzegfovinians, and was 
encamped in the neighboring mountains. He urged Lord Saunters to 
accompany him, saying that he felt sure that personal observation 
would change his views of what he persisted in calling " the bandits." 



I 



A NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENT.— TO RAG US A. r\ 



As Gus snuffed adventure in this expedition, he was eager to join at, 
and was allowed to do so. The gentlemen set off on horseback, 
accompanied by a guide. It was hard for Sallie to remain behind at 
the hotel ; but, as Lady Saunters insisted that the trip was a very 
unsuitable one for ladies, she contented herself with remaining at the 
hotel. Lord Saunters's private secretary, a Mr. Norcross, was left 
behind to guard them. Mr. Norcross occupied a singular position, 
evidently regarded as a little more than servant and less than equal ; 
he was treated with the more kindness on that account. He was the 
son of an officer, and had been a classmate of Algernon Saunters at 
the military school. He felt keenly his poverty, and Algernon pitied 
rather than liked him, for, though a brilliant scholar, 
his disposition was envious and unlovable. They 
had similar tastes, however, in many respects ; and 
as Norcross hoped for an appointment in the India 
service, he had applied himself to the study of sev- 
eral Oriental languages, which Algernon had taken 
up for love of the literature. They were now study- 
ing^ Turkish too^ether. Norcross had ereat facility 

. ^ ... MR. NORCROSS. 

in the acquisition of languages, and, it seemed to 
Sallie, equal facility in the acceptance of other people's opinions : he 
boasted that he had no religion of his own, that he could become a 
Buddhist or a Mahometan without violating his own principles. Alger- 
non insisted that his friend did not mean half he said, but Sallie disliked 
and distrusted the man. Algernon himself was a doubtful quantity in 
Sallie's judgment. He had shown that he was capable of enthusiasm. 
and she felt that if only some great cause would appeal to his 
slumbering energies he might wake up, and do good and noble work 
in the world for the right. But his inertness exasperated her more 
than Norcross's assumption of bad principles. " I want a man to be 
something',' she said to Gus, " and Algernon Saunters is lukewarm in 
everything." 




C2 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

" I like him, though," Gus insisted. "There's stuff in him whichjj 
will show itself yet, only you are such an awfully impatient ' hitch-your- 
wagon-to-a-star ' kind of a girl. But I tell you what, Sallie, don't have 
anything to do with that Norcross, — he's a cad." 

After the departure of the gentlemen, Sallie persuaded her 
chaperon to go with her to the citadel, to see the refugees from the 
districts invaded by the Turkish army. Mr. Norcross accompanied 
them in this expedition. Lady Saunters liked the young man because 
of a certain superficial resemblance which he bore her son, which had 
struck her at their first meeting ; and when Norcross had failed to 
receive the appointment which he had hoped for, she joined with her 
son in persuading Lord Saunters to engage him as his secretary. 

They found the refugees in the greatest of destitution. The 
Austrian Government issued rations amounting to about half enough 
food to support life, and they were dependent for the remainder upon 
private charity. 

Lady Saunters, while entirely disapproving of the refugees, handed 
Mr. Norcross her purse, and commissioned him to distribute loaves of 
bread among them. 

" Why don't the silly things go back to their homes?" she asked 
of the secretary. 

" Because, madam, they are afraid of the Turks." 

" But the Turks will not hurt them if they are not insurgents 
Is there any one among them who can speak English ? I would likd 
to have a good talk with them." \ 

Mr. Norcross replied that there was one family, in another part of 
the fortress, whose daughters could speak a little English, for they hadl 
attended a mission school. As they approached them, Sallie was' 
struck with their well-to-do appearance, in strong contrast with that- 
of the other refugees. The two sisters, Marika and Katarinka, were! 
strikingly unlike. Marika's broad white forehead was as pure as aj 
pond-lily ; her eyes were blue and shy ; she was dressed in a whitei 




PEASANT GIRLS. 



i 



A NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENT. — TO RAGUSA. cr 

robe with belt at the waist with two great clasps of burnished silver, 
and necklace of silver coins, and a strand of gold beads was her 
only other ornament ; her whole appearance was full of simplicity and 
modesty. Katarinka, her elder sister, had a more decided but less 
pleasing countenance. There was a vindictive look in the slant 
glances of her dark eyes, and her rich lips had a sullen turn. She 
was more showily dressed than Marika, with a profusion of sequin 
necklaces and other jewelry. Both of the girls held skeins of yarn 
of their own spinning, Marika a hen, and Katarinka a basket of 
pomegranates, which they offered for sale. Their father scowled 
sullenly in the background, and the mother tended a sick child. 

" You are from the interior?" Sallie asked ; " and they tell me you 
have attended an American school." 

The faces of both girls lightened instantly, and Katarinka replied, — 

" Yes, lady, at Samokov." 

" Ah ! then you must know my friend, Alice Newton." 

Marika knelt quickly and kissed Sallie's hand. 

"Why are you not at the school now?" Lady Saunters asked 
sternly. 

"We live in Servia, half-way between Ragusa and Samokov, and 
were at home on vacation when the Turks under Mukhtar invaded our 
country, and we fled here for protection." 

" You would have done much better to put yourself under the 
care of the American missionaries at Samokov," Lady Saunters replied 
authoritatively, " and Mukhtar Pacha would respect them, while now, 
by running away, you put yourselves in the attitude of conspirators. I 
advise you to go straight to your school, and not to bother your heads 
about the war. It will soon be over. My husband represents England, 
and he has gone to advise Peco Pavlovitch to lead his disorderly ban- 
dits back to Monteneofro ; and as soon as he does that, and the Turks 
find there is no army in the field to fight, why, of course, there will be 
no fighting." 



56 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



The girls looked very doubtful. " Cousin Trajan says we will 
never have a settled peace until we have a war," Marika replied. 
" He says that, if all the provinces united, they could drive the Turks 
out ; and his opinion is held by all ' Young Bulgaria.' It was cousin 
Trajan who advised us to come to Ragusa, for he says that we are 
going to have terrible times, and that even the missionaries will not be 
able to protect us ; but here we are under Austria and near Monte- 
negro. Cousin Trajan says the only two men capable of saving the 
Christians are Prince Milan of Servia and Prince Nicholas of Monte- 
negro. If they will only combine and set the example to the other 
states by declaring war against Turkey, Bulgaria and the rest will rise, 
and we will not need the assistance of any of the great powers of 
Europe to settle our affairs. Cousin Trajan has gone to Belgrade to 
see Prince Milan, and he is going to see Prince Nicholas .too " — 

" Sh ! " said Katarinka warningly ; and Lady Saunters exclaimed 
that she feared cousin Trajan must be a very bad man, and a traitor 
and conspirator. 

" You will never make Marika think so," said the older sister. 
" She is betrothed to Trajan. He is a jeweller of Tatar Bazardjik 
in Bulgaria. He made all our jewelry. Marika is not fond of trinkets, 
so she gives most of his presents to me. Only the buckles to her 
girdle she would not give to any one, for they represent her betrothal. 
See, one clasp is engraved with Trajan's initials, and one with hers ; 
and, while those clasps hold together, the engagement holds." 

" It is a very pretty fancy," said Sallie, examining the buckle. 
" Your cousin Trajan must be a very clever goldsmith. I should 
think he would be sorry to have you so far away. I really think that 
you would be as safe at the mission-school, and that you had better o-q 
back. I will write a note for you to take to my friend. Miss Newton. 
You must tell her that I am coming to see her, and that I hope to find 
you both at the school." 

Sallie purchased the girl's yarn, and Lady Saunters made them each 



A NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENT— TO RAG US A. 



57 



a small present, reiterating her assurance that there would be no war 
in Bulgaria or Servia, for the Herzegovinian outbreak would be speedily 
put down. 

" Those are the first Bulgarian or Servian girls that I have seen," 
said Mr. Norcross. " If they are all as pretty, I don't blame the Turks 
for wishing to keep their provinces." 



eg THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE ADVENTURES BEGIN. 

WHILE the ladies were having this interview, the gentlemen of 
the party pursued their way over a rocky, mountainous road 
toward the camp of the insurgents. Sometimes the track wound 
around the cliffs close to the sea, and they had superb views of the 
Adriatic and its islands ; then, again, it plunged into a dark defile, or 
climbed the steep mountains winding toward the interior. 

It was nearly nightfall when, jaded and weary, they reached a pass 
overlooking the camp, a collection of miserable huts. Several armed 
men, dressed very much like stage bandits at the theatre, in a profusion 
of gold embroidery, velvet jackets, baggy trousers, leggins, and fez 
caps, with a most formidable array of long rifles, pistols, and daggers, 
stopped their progress. 

Mr. Osborne handed one of them a paper, which was signed by 
their leader, and the man volunteered to show them to the hut of 
Peco Pavlovitch. 

Wild-looking men started up on every side, and Gus, more than' 
half frigfhtened, rode close to Mr. Osborne. 

" Are you sure that you have not made a mistake, and that we 
have not fallen into the hands of the Turks ? " he asked. 

" Certainly," replied Mr. Osborne, " these men are all Christians. 
You can tell that by their mustaches : Turks wear full beards, while 
Christians in this country shave all but the upper lip." 

"Well, here is a jolly go!" Gus exclaimed: "by that rule, Lord 
Saunters is a Turk of the worst kind." 

" You are possibly not far wrong in your deductions," Mr. 



n 



THE ADVENTURES BEGIN. 



6i 



Osborne replied, in a low voice, and subsequent events proved that 
the Englishman's beard was not regarded with favor by the insurgents. 
The leader, however, received them all courteously, and a rude but 
appetizing supper of roasted kid was immediately served them, after 
which they were invited to a council in 
Peco's hut. 

The room was filled with smoke, 
and, though Algernon could make out 
a word now and then, neither Gus nor 
Lord Saunters could understand what 
was said ; but it was interesting to 
watch the faces, some of them seamed 
with ugly scars, some fierce and re- 
vengeful, others, as it seemed to the 
boy, very fine and noble. 

Gus especially liked the heroic ap- 
pearance of the Herzegovinian voi- 
voda, or leader, Ljubibratic. Peco 
seemed to him more sad than savage. 
He wore a vest of silver mail, and 
Turkish weapons damascened with 
gold. Among them was a cimeter 
of Damascus, which had been taken from some fallen Turkish of^cer. 
He sat silently through the greater part of the council, listening to 
the remarks of the other chiefs, and to those of a Russian gentleman, 
who seemed, like themselves, to be visiting the camp, but upon whom 
Lord Saunters looked with great hauteur and suspicion. 

After the council, they were shown to a hut, which was placed at 
the disposal of the guests. Lord Saunters, thoroughly wearied, retired 
at once, and was soon snoring loudly. Mr. Osborne opened his 
knapsack writing-desk, and began writing a newspaper letter by the 
lieht of a cancfle stuck in a bottle. 




THE WAR CORRESPONDENT. 



Gus watched him until late into 



52 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

the night, as he wrote sheet after sheet, throwing them on the floor 
by his side as he finished them. The candle sputtered and fell, and 
still he wrote, wrote, — supplying its place by another which he took 
from his pocket. The Russian sat by the rude fireplace, smoking, and 
chatting in a low voice with Algernon and with a handsome stranger 
in a black turban. Gus, with an eye toward the sensational, at first 
wondered if he were not a Turkish spy, in spite of the fact that he 
wore the distinctive mustache. They were evidently talking about the 
war, for the stranger drew a map in the ashes on the hearth, and Gus 
heard the names of Prince Milan and Prince Nicholas, and the word 
Bulgaria, frequently repeated. At last, the Russian rose, knocked the 
ashes out of his pipe, and, shaking hands warmly with the stranger, 
retired. The man in the black turban still sat answering Algernon's 
questions and watching Mr. Osborne as he wrote ; and Gus was 
very sleepy now, — his eyes seemed dancing sparks, which winked and 
glimmered, and finally went out in the darkness. 

When he awoke, it was broad daylight, and Mr. Osborne, who pos- 
sibly had not been to bed at all, was shaking him, saying that it was 
time to have breakfast, and begin their return journey. 

The stranger, who, Mr. Osborne explained, was a travelling gold- 
smith, would accompany them, as he had said that he wished to catch 
the Austrian Lloyds steamer, and go on without delay to Montenegro. 
So he was not a spy or a Turk, after all, but only a prosaic pedler who 
had possibly sold Peco Pavlovitch his beautiful silver cuirass, and, no 
doubt, found the trinket-loving chiefs good patrons of his wares. 

Peco came to see them at their breakfast, and talked warmly with 
Mr. Osborne, but appeared to regard Lord Saunters and his son with 
some mistrust. The latter said to Mr. Osborne, " Ask him how it is 
that he, a general under Prince Nicholas, who has not declared war 
against the Turks, is here with the insurgent Herzegovinians." 

Mr. Osborne translated his reply. Peco stated that, so far from 
sympathizing with the Herzegovinians, Prince Nicholas had sent him 



THE ADVENTURES BEGIN. 



65 



I 



out to dissuade their voivoda from insurrection. Ljubibratic would not 
listen to him, and Peco, greatly enraged, arrested him, and was carry- 
ing him back to Montenegro a prisoner. But on the way the voivoda 
argued his own cause so eloquently that Peco was won over, and, liber- 
ating his prisoner, returned with him as his ally. 

Lord Saunters expressed his disapproval of this conduct in strong 
terms, but this Mr. Osborne did not see fit to translate, and, bidding 
farewell to their host, they were soon on their return to Ragusa. 

But their adventures were not at an end. They were within an 
hour's ride of Ragusa when their guide pointed out to them the Turkish 
fort of Czarino, which commands the highway from Austria to Herzego- 
vina. " The insurgents would like to take that fort," he said, " but the 
Turks are too strongly intrenched for them. However, they are only 
prisoners in their own fortress, for the Herzegovinians watch them as a 
cat watches a rat-hole, and not a turbaned rat of them dares venture 
out. There is a party now in ambush at the next turn, waiting for 
some unwary Turk to venture this way." 

Alofernon Saunters did not like the look of the ambuscade, and 
asked if there were not some other road to Ragusa ; but Mr. Osborne 
laughed at his fears, and approached the party fearlessly. What was 
his surprise when the leader allowed all to pass except Lord Saunters, 
insisting that he must remain with them ! 

" I told you so ! " groaned his Lordship. "They are brigands, and 
they intend to hold me for ransom." 

Mr. Osborne and Algernon remonstrated, and showed the pass- 
port signed by Peco. "That is all very well for you," replied the 
guard, " but this man has no passport, and we believe him to be a 
Turk." 

"A Turk!" exclaimed the newspaper correspondent. "Any one 
can see that he is an Eno-lishman ! " 

"That makes no difference. The Englishmen are all Mohamme- 
dans, and support everything that Turkey does." 



66 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



" But this gentleman is not a Mohammedan. He is a Christian 
Hke yourself." 

" If he is a Christian, why does he wear a beard ? " 

" It is the custom 

mk:' 



in England." 

"We do not be- 
lieve it. If the gen- 
tleman will shave off 
his beard, we will al- 
low him to pass on. 
If not, he must remain 
in our custody." 

Mr. Osborne ex- 
plained the conditions. 
" But I have left my 
shaving-case at Ra- 
gusa," demurred Lord 
Saunters. "That is 
of no consequence. I 
will shave you," re- 
plied one of the in- 
surgents. 

Algernon started, 
and his hand flew to 
his revolver. "It is 
a scheme to cut my 
father's throat in cold 
blood," he whispered to Mr. Osborne. " If there is any shaving to be 
done, I will do it," he said, aloud. The insurgents did not understand 
his words as well as his movement. One of them threw a scarf over 
his body, and strapped his arms tighdy to his side. 

"There is nothing for it but to submit," explained Mr. Osborne. 




A BARBAROUS OPERATION. 




INSURGENTS IN AMBUSH. 



THE ADVENTURES BEGIN. 



69 



"I do not think they meditate any evil." It was not, however, without 
solemn assurances on the part of the insurgents, and not until after 
much argumentation, that his Lordship yielded his nose to the rude 
hand of the mountaineer, and his chin to a dull razor. He turned very 
pale as the cold steel touched his throat ; and it was really a severe trial 
of nerve. It was not until the 
ordeal was over, Algernon un- 
bound, and considerable distance 
had been placed between them 
and the ungentle barbers, that ^ 
any of the party recovered their ^ 
spirits sufficiently to joke. "I 
consider that a very barbarous 
operation ! " exclaimed his Lord- 
ship, not at all intending a pun, 
as, mourning the departed glories 
of his whiskers, he regarded his 
lacerated countenance in a little 
hand-mirror. " I'm sure, I don't 
know what my wife will say. I 
believe she married me for my 
whiskers." 

Lady Saunters was, indeed, 
very angry. She wished her hus- 
band to make a memorial of his 
disfigurement, and send it at once 
to the Enelish Parliament and to 
the King of Austria. It was not until her husband had promised that 
he would "think of it" that she was at all appeased. 

They were to leave Ragusa that evening, and Sallie visited the 
citadel to give Marika her note to Alice. 

She found the girl looking very happy 




DEPARTED GLORIES. 



There was a stranger 



jQ THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

with the family, whom she presented as " Cousin Trajan." He bowed 
poKtely, but speedily withdrew ; not, however, before Sallie had scru- 
tinized him closely. He wore a long, red, fur-trimmed cloak, frogged 
across the breast, like the coat of an army officer. His face was some- 
what sad, but singularly refined. 

" Cousin Trajan says," chatted Marika, " that he thinks we may 
return to Bulgaria. There will be no fighting at present, and, when 
there' is, we are to go up into the Balkans, to the village of Batak, 
where his mother lives, and there the Turks will never find us. His 
father owns a saw-mill, and he can employ my father in lumbering, and 
it is only thirty miles from Tatar Bazardjik, where Trajan's shop is, 
so that he can come to see us often. So to-morrow we return, and 
Katarinka will go for the present to the mission school at Samokov. 
But if war breaks out we will take Miss Newton with us to the 
Balkans, and you must come and visit us there in the hot weather." 

"May I come too?" asked Mr. Norcross, who had come to the 
citadel with the bread sent by Lady Saunters ; but Marika shrank back 
timidly, and made no reply, while Katarinka scowled scornfully at the 
presumptuous stranger. 



MONTENEGRO. 



CHAPTER VII. 



MONTENEGRO. 



ON leaving Ragusa, the travelling jeweller came on board the 
steamer. Gus pointed him out to his sister, and told ot 
the circumstances of their first meeting, and how he had imagined 
him a spy. It happened that the man turned his face toward them 
while they were speaking of him, and Sallie caught her brother's arm 
with the whispered exclamation, " Why, it is cousin Trajan !" 

"What do you mean?" asked Gus, and Sallie in turn told her 
story. She had hardly finished, when Algernon Saunters brought the 
jeweller forward, and presented him as Trajan Evanova, explaining 
that he was on his way to Montenegro with some curious filigree 
jewelry for Prince Nicholas. At their request, he showed his wares to 
the party, and Sallie bought a necklace of coins, and Lord Saunters 
a nearly globular bull's-eye watch. "That watch is Bulgarian," said 
Mr. Osborne ; " I have seen some exactly similar made by the native 
goldsmiths of Monastir." 

The merchant gave the correspondent a significant look as he 
replied, "The goldsmiths of the different provinces frequently inter- 
change their work and their ideas." 

They found the man courteous and intelligent. Algernon had 
taken a great fancy to him, and he often chatted with them, Mr. 
Osborne acting as interpreter. He told them of the system of taxes 
which grinds down the poor peasants, who pay four-fifths of what they 
produce to the Porte. " The silks of Turkey are justly noted," he said. 
" but see how can they be manufactured when the government taxes 



72 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 







COUSIN TRAJAN. 



every mulberry tree, 
the land upon which 
it is grown, the silk- 
worms that feed upon it, 
"^I'JJ ^^ ^^w silk, every yard 
^''fl of goods, and even the 
,j labor of the weaver. If 
the poor man has no 
money to pay his taxes, 
the officer seizes his 
manufactured goods, his 
loom, his household fur- 
niture. If he objects to 
this, he is- beaten and 
imprisoned. 

"It is so with my 
own industry. Not a 
foot of land can be 
owned in the provinces 
by any one but the Sul- 
tan. The owners of the 
gold and silver mines 
pay fully four-fifths of 
their products for the 
privilege of working 
them, and I must be 
bled in like manner for 
every conceivable item 
of my stock in trade." 

Mr. Evanova ac- 
knowledged to Alger- 
non, in confidence, that 




MONTENEGRIN SENATOR. 



MONTENEGRO. y r 

he was a Bulgarian, and the young man suspected that his errand with 
Prince Nicholas was a political one. 

Cettinje, the capital of Montenegro, is situated at a day's journey 
from the coast, and is approached either from the port of Cattaro, 
where there is an excellent hotel, or from Spitza. As the latter route 
would give them a trip across the Lake of Scutari, besides taking them 
through a more picturesque region, and as Lady Saunters was a good 
horsewoman, and both she and Sallie preferred making the excursion 
to Cettinje to being left at a seaside hotel, the party did not land 
again until they reached Spitza, where they were taken over the 
mountains, in a sort of rude jaunting-car, to the Lake of Scutari, 
across which a boatman took them, in a small sail-boat, to the heart of 
Monteneofro. 

The mountains were all around them, gloomy and sombre ; and 
Sallie remiarked to Algernon Saunters that she did not wonder that the 
little country had been named the Black Mountains, or that the Turks 
had been unable in four hundred years to wrest it from the hardy 
mountaineers, while they had conquered all the other provinces with 
the exception of Dalmatia, which is under the protection of Austria. 

Algernon entered at once into an animated conversation on the 
subject of the Turkish principalities. " If they had only remained 
united," he insisted, " these provinces of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Dal- 
matia, and Montenegro, as they were under the Romans, they might 
have formed a powerful nation, which could have easily maintained 
itself aeainst the Turks on the one hand and the Russians on the 
other. They preferred to remain distinct ; Bosnia ruled by kings, 
Herzegovina by dukes, and Montenegro by vladikas, or prince bishops, 
until 1 85 1, when the prince gave up the ecclesiastical dignity." 

The party had left Lake Scutari, having landed at the little town of 
Riska, where they were to engage horses to take them to Cettinje. 

Mr. Norcross reminded Algernon that he had expressed a desire to 
visit the monastery of Ostrog, not far from Rieka, in order to examine 



76 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



1 



its library, and Lord Saunters also announced that he would like to see 
this famous old monastery. As no accommodations could probably be 
obtained at the convent for ladies, Mr. Norcross proposed to obtain a 
guide at Rieka, and to escort the party to Cettinje, leaving Lord 
Saunters and Algernon to spend the night at Ostrog. This plan did not 
appear to suit the usually acquiescent Algernon. 

" I think I had better go on with mother," he said. " You, Nor- 
cross, can rummage in the library for me, and make notes of anything 
which you think will interest me. I do not think I care to make the 
acquaintance of those musty old monks." 

It was accordingly decided that Lord Saunters and his secretary 
should remain at the monastery until the next day, and the rest of the 
party proceeded to Cettinje. 

" For what is the convent so celebrated?" Sallie asked of Algernon 
as they rode side by side. 

" It was a seat of learning in the Middle Ages," the young man 
replied. " In 1492 there was a printing-press established here, before 
the art of printing was in general use elsewhere. The press was used 
until 1852, when, during a Turkish invasion, the types were melted into 
bullets." 

Their ponies were sure-footed as chamois, and, though the bridle- 
path was execrable, the ride was not so dangerous as it seemed. 

" One can hardly believe," said Algernon, " that this is the main 
thoroughfare to the capital. Why does not Prince Nicholas construct 
a better highway ? " 

''The answer is very simple," replied the goldsmith. "Prince 
Nicholas is not so disinterested as to open the way for Turkish artillery 
and other military trains into his country. These rocks are his fortress, 
and he has need of them, for yonder is a Turkish fort, just across the 
border." 

Their Montenegrin guide, who trudged sturdily beside their horses, 
sneered at this remark, and, laying his hand upon his yataghan, remarked, 




MONTENEGRIN SCENES. 



MONTENEGRO. ^^ 

•' The Turks will not cross the frontier, they dare not, they know that 
we would be only too glad to see them." 

What a picturesque fellow this mountaineer was, in his white tunic 
embroidered in gold, his dark blue Turkish trousers laced below the 
knee with bright braid, a round cap of varied colors, and his belt an 
entire armory of pistols and daggers ! Lady Saunters declared that he 
was a bandit leading them away to a mountain fastness. 

" If that is the case," said Sallie, " I shall have a chance to sketch, 
for I have brought my water-colors with me." 

" I do not believe," said Lady Saunters, " that any one, with the 
exception of my husband, Algernon, and myself, will be detained. The 
only object of these brigands is ransom, and they have a very keen eye 
as to where it can be obtained. That explains the safety with which 
Mr. Osborne can travel among them: he has nothing for them to 
steal." 

" If that were the case," Gus replied, " why didn't they rob the 
jeweller when Lord Saunters was shaved ? He had his case of goods 
with him, and they knew it ; and there was that Russian gentleman, — 
he had a very wealthy look. I believe he is some prince travelling for 
pleasure. I saw a jewelled decoration on his breast when his overcoat 
was thrown back, and yet none of Peco's men offered to molest him. 
Besides, they didn't rob Lord Saunters, or say a word about money, and 
this man has a very honest look. I don't think we need be afraid 
of him." 

Just as Lady Saunters's fears were becoming unappeasable, the little 
cavalcade reached Cettinje. They found the capital of Montenegro a 
straggling village on two streets, which unite, forming a letter T. The 
houses were small white cottages for the most part ; while the govern- 
ment building, containing the senate chamber, the arsenal, the printing- 
office, etc., was of very modest dimensions. Prince Nicholas's palace 
was a plain, one-story edifice, and the monastery was the only 
picturesque building in the town. 



go THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



^ 



Mr. Osborne domiciled them in a pleasant inn. Algernon joined 
them at table after a short tour of exploration about the town. 

" It is a charming place, mother," he remarked. " Why not decide 
to stay here for a week ? Osborne, Evanova, and I have arranged a 
horseback trip. We start to-night and may not return for a day or two." 

He spoke cheerily, — almost, Sallie thought, with forced gayety. 
Lady Saunters, without noticing this, was not pleased. 

" I would rather you would put off this trip, Algernon," she said, 
" until your father returns. I do not think that he would approve of 
your leaving Miss Benton and me with no protector. Suppose some- 
thing should happen — that the Turks should fall upon this town, and 
Mr. Norcross away too ; none of us speak Arabic or Hindoostanee, or 
any of those outlandish tongues. We could not even tell them that 
we are English." 

A shade crossed Algernon Saunters's face ; he was deeply annoyed, 
but he concealed his vexation. " Master Benton, here, is studying 
Greek," he said, "and Miss Benton speaks French perfectly — besides, 
dear mother, you are perfectly safe in Cettinje. I am quite sure that 
my father would approve of my plan." 

" Say no more about it, Algy," Lady Saunters replied, i'n the same 
tone in which she had been accustomed to deny him sweets when he 
was a boy in knickerbockers. " I really cannot spare you in the absence 
of your father. You will make me very wretched if you persist in your 
self-will." 

" You are quite right. Lady Saunters," said Mr. Osborne. " Your 
son's duty at this time is at your side." 

Algernon gave him a strange look, and seemed about to speak ; but 
as his mother rose from the table he offered her his arm, and led her 
dutifully from the dining-room. Sallie was about to follow, but Gus 
detained her. 

" You will let me go, will you not, Sallie ? You won't baby me the 
way Lady Saunters does that great, grown man, — will you, dear?" 




MONTENEGRIN SOLDIER. 



MONTENEGRO. 



83 



Sallie glanced Inquiringly at Mr, Osborne, who replied quickly, " I 
can't take )'ou this time, Gus. You had better remain with your sister. 
You will know why by and by." His tone piqued Sallie's curiosity, but 
she made no inquiry. Gus strolled out-of-doors, and she was mounting 
the stairs when she met Algernon Saunters coming down in haste. 
"Stop a moment. Miss Benton," he said. " Has Mr, Osborne gone? 
I must see him." 

The w'ar correspondent came forward as he spoke, " We may as 
well take Miss Benton into our confidence," said Algernon. " I cannot 
remain behind, I must go with you." 

" Let Miss Benton be the judge of that," replied Mr. Osborne. 
" The matter is, that I have just learned that a party of Montenegrins 
leave Cettinje this evening for Rieka, as they have heard that a night 
attack has been planned by the Turks on the fortress-convent of 
Ostrog. I have thought best to accompany the Montenegrins to look 
after Lord Saunters, and this young man desires, very naturally but very 
foolishl)^ to accompany me. He will not be of the slightest use, and, 
on the other hand, may be needed here. It is not necessary to alarm 
Lady Saunters by putting the case before her ; she has decided it very 
well without knowing all the interests at stake. If Lord Saunters 
should fall into the hands of the Turks, his son's presence would be 
vitally necessary to his mother." 

"And, on the other hand," Algernon broke in excitedly, "you can 
understand. Miss Benton, that no one with the feelings of a man could 
allow a rescuing party to go out in search of his father without 
accompanying it." 

"I understand," replied Sallie, "and I sympathize with you, — but 
do you really promise to abide by my decision ? " 

" I will," replied Algernon, " for I am so torn by conflicting opinions 
that I do not know what to do." 

" Are you certain," Sallie asked of James Osborne, " that he can do 
no good by accompanying you ? " 



M 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



" Absolutely certain of it," the correspondent replied. 
" Then," said Sallie," I think your duty is with your mother." 
non turned impatiently on his heel, and strode out of the hotel 

Osborne smiled. 



Alger- 
James 
He is 
not over-polite. Miss Sal- 
lie," he said, "but never 
mind, you have advised 
him rightly. Do not worry 
about us unless we fail to 
put in appearance by to- 
morrow evening, in which 
case you had better lay the 
matter before Prince Nich- 
olas." 

Sallie was intensely 
anxious, but she succeeded 
in disguising her feelings, 
and in giving her Ladyship 
a pleasant evening. Lady 
Saunters imagined that her 
son had given up his ex- 
cursion entirely out of def- 
erence to her authority, 
and was extremely gra- 
cious. Algernon was un- 
usually silent, but as they 
parted for the night he con- 
trived to say to Sallie, " You were quite right ; pardon my boorishness." 
The next morning they spent in strolling about the town, and in the 
afternoon Lady Saunters insisted that they should make a call of cere- 
mony upon Princess Milene. They were surprised to find here the Rus- 
sian gentleman whom Algernon and Gus had met at the insurgent camp. 




PRINCE NICHOLAS. 



MONTENEGRO. 



85 



He was introduced to them as Mr. Ignatieff, and it was explained 
that he was in no way related to the prince of that name, but was a 
simple editor of a Moscow journal. Gus could not help thinkinq- that 
he did not look at all like 
a literar)^ man, but that his 
bearing was decidedly mil- 
itary. There was no stoop 
in the shoulders to betray 
bondage to the desk, but 
they were thrown back in 
a way that told of habitual 
horseback exercise. 

While the Russian oren- 
tleman conversed with the 
Prince, the ladies chatted 
with the Princess. She 
had a gentle manner, but 
her face indicated great 
firmness and intelligence, 
and the complicated affairs 
of the little country had 
been left in her hands and 
well manapfed durinor her 
husband's absences from 
Montenegro. Lady Saun- 
ters complimented her 
on the admirable finesse 
shown by the Prince in not allowing himself to be drawn by his sub- 
jects into a declaration of war with Turkey. 

The countenance of the Princess fell. " If you knew how very diffi- 
cult it is not to declare war," she said, " to hold back our high-spirited 
chiefs, and tamely to submit to the degradation of looking on while the 




PRINCESS MILENE. 



86 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 




Turks are butchering our brethren! Ah! nothing but the fact that 
such a step would be the suicide of the nation keeps him in this atti- 
tude of pohcy. It is useless for Montenegro, single-handed, to become 
the champion of Christendom as long as such powerful nations as 
England and Russia, by their indifference, encourage the Turks to 11 

oppress, rob, and maltreat their Christian sub- 
jects in every conceivable way." 

Mr. Ignatieff had overheard her remark, 
for he turned and replied in a low voice, 
" Russia is not so indifferent as you think. 
I have heard that Prince Milan of Servia has 
entered into negotiations with the Czar, 
which may lead to developments which will 
create considerable surprise among the Great 
Powers." 

An eager light came into the Princess's 
eyes. " If this were only true ! " she said. 
" Madam ! " exclaimed Lady Saunters, 
" you surely cannot wish to see this peninsula plunged into the horrors 
of war." 

"A disgraceful and criminal peace is still more horrible," replied 
the Princess. 

" Milene ! " said the Prince warningly. " My dear madam," he 
continued, addressing Lady Saunters, " be assured that I will endeavor, 
so far as lies in my power, to maintain the peace of Europe ; but I am 
not an autocrat. I can keep the nation back as a nation from declaring 
war against Turkey, but I have no power over my subjects as individ- 
uals ; and the greater part of our fighting force is now in Herzegovina, 
engaged, every man on his own responsibility, in fighting the Turks, 
who in their turn do not scruple when they dare to make raids upon 
my territory. It is fortunate for your husband, madam, that I was 
informed of their intended attack on Ostrog, and sent out a force to 
defend the fortress yesterday." 



MR. IGNATIEFF. 







v„wi ,»^^- ' I 



MONTENEGRO. 



89 



It was the first intimation that Lad)- Saunters had had of her 
husband's danger, and she was much alarmed. The Prince re-assured 
her partially by explaining that the forces must have arrived at Ostrog, 
and the Turks have been informed of their arrival before the time set 
for the attack. 

" There will be no fio-hting-," said the Prince. "The Turks are cowards. 
It was all very well to massacre a few defenceless priests, but as soon 
as they know that the monks are not the only men in the convent, the 
rich plunder in Ostrog will not seem so desirable." 

" If England has so much influence in Turkish affairs," suggested 
Sallie, " why does she not restrain Turkey from making her rule in her 
European provinces so oppressive ? " 

" Enofland doubtless could do this if she would," the Prince 
replied. 

" And Enofland shall ! " Alofernon Saunters exclaimed with much 
warmth. " The Sultan shall be made to understand that the great 
heart of the English people will not allow him to mismanage his affairs 
and bully his subjects in this shameless fashion. I had no idea — 
English people generally have no idea — of the extent of taxation 
and oppression which you have just explained to me. I intend to 
investigate the matter still further, and devote what influence I possess 
to insisting on a speedy reform." 

"I am sure," murmured Lady Saunters, " that my husband will 
report what we have heard, on our return to England, to his friend Lord 
Beaconsfield. I have no doubt everything can be amicably arranged 
if Prince Nicholas can maintain his admirable peace policy a litde longer, 
and Prince Milan will not allow Servia to rush into war trusting to the 
deceitful promises of support from wily Russia." 

As Lady Saunters said this, she threw a glance of scorn toward 
Mr. Ignatieff, who maintained an inscrutable expression of counte- 



nance 



Lady Saunters returned to the inn secure in her supreme confidence 



go THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

in Lord Beaconsfield's ability to regulate the affairs of Europe by his 
peace policy ; but as the hours dragged slowly by, and it was now long 
past the time that Mr. Osborne had said they might be expected, 
Algernon became intensely anxious. He paced the veranda, listening 
acutely from time to time for the clatter of hoofs which should proclaim 
the safe return of his father and friends. Sallie sat with Lady Saunters, 
and listened politely to her gentle flow of amiable chat, until she ended 
in bidding her a calm good-night. Algernon was sitting in an attitude of 
dejection on the veranda, and Sallie stole quietly out to him. She pointed 
to a group of men who were standing under a large tree in the centre 
of the village. They seemed to be engaged in earnest debate, and 
Sallie asked if this was not the tree under which the chiefs were accus- 
tomed to hold their councils of war. 

The council, if such it was, broke up presently, and one of the men, 
who wore a long red cloak, crossed the square, and entered the palace ; 
and Sallie felt sure from his gait that it was Prince Nicholas. Another, 
whose carriage had something in it which was familiar, approached the 
inn, and Algernon, who could restrain himself no longer, asked if any 
news had been received from Ostrog. " I was just coming to inform 
you," replied a voice, which Sallie recognized as that of Mr. Ignatieff, 
" that a courier has returned from Ostrog, and no attack has been 
made. Your friends are, in all probability, quite safe." 

"Thank you," Algernon replied warmly, " and yet is it not strange 
that they do not return ? " 

"They may be waiting for an escort; and, even if they should fall 
into the hands of the Turks, Lord Saunters, as an Englishman, would 
not run the danger which a man of another nationality — a Russian, for 
instance — might encounter." 

" Do you think that Mr. Osborne and his companion would be 
roughly handled if captured ? " 

" I would not like to be in their shoes ; but Mr. Osborne is a 
representative of America, and a non-combatant, and they are both 



MONTENEGRO. g j 



under the protection of Lord Saunters. Besides, we know nothino- to 
lead us to suppose that they have been captured. It is, however, no 
time to travel in European lurkey, and I would advise the ladies 
especially to leave the country." 

" Mr. Ignatieff," asked Sallie, " is there going to be a general war? 
I have particular reasons for knowing, and I believe you can tell me. 
Will Russia espouse the cause of the Turkish provinces ? " 

" I am not prepared to say what Russia will do as a nation, but if 
the Czar does not take a stand in behalf of these people, who belong to 
the same great Slavic race with ourselves, and are Christians like our- 
selves, I have no hesitation in saying that a large proportion of the 
Russian officers will offer their services to Prince Milan of Servia. 
However, this is hardly the time or place for a discussion of the Eastern 
question. Pray be assured that your friends are in no immediate 
danger, and consider me entirely at your service should you have need 
of me at any time." 

With a profound bow the Russian withdrew. Algernon drew a long 
breath of relief. " I have been trying to think," he said, " that if I 
have suffered so much mental torture from the thought that my father, 
who is backed by the English nation, may be in the power of the 
Turks, what must be the condition of mind of these poor beggars of 
Bulgarians." 

" I think it is time that somebody thought about them," Sallie 
replied simply. 

"We are all so selfish," Algernon replied hotly, "we think only of 
what concerns ourselves." 

"That is putting it rather strongly," said Sallie. "Say rather that 
these people are so far away that we do not realize their troubles." 

She turned to go in, but he called to her: " Miss Benton, I want to 
thank you now while I have the opportunity." 

" For what ?" she asked, much surprised. 

" For giving me an object of interest. You have waked me up, 



o^ THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

and now I intend to look after these poor people a little. Perhaps I 
shall be able to do something for them ; perhaps in striving to do this 
I shall amount to something myself. If I do, it will all be your fault. 
Do you understand ? " 

" No ; but I am very glad. Good-night." 



LORD :iAUATERS IS TAKEN FJUSOAER. q^ 



CHAPTER VIII. 

LORD SAUNTERS IS TAKEN PRISONER. 

AFTER leaving their friends, Lord Saunters and Mr. Norcross pro- 
ceeded in the direction of the convent of Ostrog. They rode 
leisurely, and, as it was still early in the afternoon, they turned aside 
from the regular route to explore a bridle-path which led into a grove 
of chestnuts. They had not ridden far when two men sprang from the 
ground and seized Lord Saunters's bridle, while another dragged Mr. 
Norcross from the saddle. It needed but a glance at their captors to 
tell them that these were no Montenegrins. They were darker and 
more brutal men, and they wore the Zouave costume. 

Lord Saunters knew at once that he had fallen into the hands of 
Mukhtar Pacha's advance-guard. The men conversed together in Turk- 
ish, while his Lordship produced his passport, and protested loudly that 
he was an Englishman. Mr. Norcross aired the little Turkish which he 
knew, and insisted on being taken to their commanding officer. 

The men partly understood him, and evidently regarded him of 
more importance than his Lordship, whom they fastened to a tree, having 
first emptied his pockets. The soldier in command of the squad took 
possession of these effects, and informed Mr. Norcross that his request 
was about to be granted, and that he was to be taken immediately to 
headquarters. After a little further parley, he persuaded the man 
to allow him first to speak with Lord Saunters, and to give him the use 
of writing materials. " I will do the best I can," he assured his em- 
ployer, " but these Turks are rapacious creatures, and you will doubtless 
have to pay a heavy ransom." 

His Lordship, thoroughly terrified, handed Mr. Norcross his letter of 



94 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 




credit, and made out a blank check payable at Constantinople to the 
bearer. " Don't peril our lives, Norcross, by trying to save me money," 
he said. " Fill it out for whatever sum the bandits demand, and get us 
out of this predicament as soon as possible." 

"Trust to me," the secretary replied, and at the time he had no 
intention of proving unfaithful. He was escorted through the wood, 

down a rocky defile, to the Turkish 
camp, and presented at once to the 
commander, who addressed him after 
examining the passport. 

" I understand," he said, " that we 
have the honor of holding as prisoners 
two English gentlemen of rank. I pre- 
sume that I address the son of Lord 
Saunters ? " 

It was a characteristic of Mr, Nor- 
cross that he did not scruple at a false- 
hood ; he assumed boldly the character 
assigned him, and assured the general that, under the existing friendly 
relations between their governments, he was at a loss to understand 
upon what pretext two English noblemen were thus detained. The 
Turk stroked his beard softly, and looked at him from the corners of 
his slant eyes. He was evidently studying his man. " Tell me," he 
said, " the purpose of your journey, and your plans." 
Mr. Norcross mapped out their proposed route. 

"All this, you say, is for pleasure," said the general. "Pleasure 
should not be the chief object in life of a young man like yourself. You 
should have a career. You have spoken of the friendly relations exist- 
ing between our countries. The Sultan recognizes them, and is willing 
to assign high posts in our army and navy to Englishmen of birth and 
ability. You have had a military education. How would you like to 
put it in practice ? We are on the eve of a war of more importance 



A TURKISH COMMANDER. 



LORD SAUNTERS IS TAKEN PRISONER. n^ 

than this paltry outbreak — a war which will give opportunities of 
distinction and advancement. Will you join us ? " 

Mr. Norcross felt that he was completely in the man's power, and 
he answered, with many protestations of delight and friendship, that a 
commission in the Turkish army had been the dream of his youth. He 
admitted, however, that his father might object to this arrangement, 
and that it was not at all convenient for him to remain with him at 
present, but if the gentlemen would kindly allow him to depart, and 
arrange his affairs, he would give his word of honor to report himself at 
Constantinople as soon as possible. 

The general smiled incredulously, gave him another sidelong 
glance, and then turned aside to receive some reports which had just 
come. 

" You will accompany us for a short distance," he said finally, to 
Mr. Norcross. *' I have just learned that Ostrog is to be re-enforced ; 
we will accordingly fall back. Do not be alarmed, you will be released 
in a few days," 

All that night the division was on the march, and at daybreak it 
joined the main army. Here Mr. Norcross found Lord Saunters, who 
had been treated much more roughly than himself. After a short interval 
of rest, the tents were again folded, and the army continued its retreat. 
Division after division marched away, but the squad who guarded the 
Englishmen remained in their places until an orderly rode up, and 
handed Norcross a sealed package. "The general bids me say to 
you," he said in Turkish, " that, if you hold to your purpose of going 
to Constantinople, you may find it to your advantage to present this to 
the Minister of War. You are now free to go where you will." 

The aid galloped away, the guards cut the cords which bound the 
prisoners, and hurriedly fell into the ranks of the last column, and they 
were left standing by the side of the road. Mr. Norcross placed the 
packet carefully in his breast-pocket, and turned to Lord Saunters, who 
was nearly exhausted with fright and fatigue. 



98 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



" We are free," he said, " and we had best make our way to Ostrog 
with all speed, before we fall into the hands of stragglers." Not exactly 
sure of their way, they wandered about that day to little purpose in the 
mountains, but were fortunate enough to find themselves at the door 
of a hut belonging to a goat-herd, where they received food and shelter. 
Here Lord Saunters took heart and courage a little. "We have 
had a wonderful escape," he said. "Why, Norcross, after you left 
me, the scouts brought in another prisoner, a Montenegrin, and 
hanged him right there before my eyes. I suppose I owe my escape 
to you. How much did you have to pay the general ? I shall 
not grudge a thousand pounds if we only get safely out of this 
beastly country." 

The Turkish general had not suggested the payment of ransom, 
and Lord Saunters's draft still lay in his own pocket. Very subtly the 
temptation came to him to take advantage of this circumstance, and to 
trust to being in Constantinople at some future day to claim the money 
for his own use. He replied that he had made out the draft for twelve 
hundred pounds, quieting his uneasy conscience as he did so with the 
reflection that the money was not yet stolen, and that he need not take 
it if he should think better of the project. Lord Saunters expressed 
himself as satisfied. He had not noticed the delivery of the packet to 
Mr. Norcross by the Turkish aid, and his only feeling was one of pro- 
found gratitude for his escape. The goat-herd guided them in the 
direction of Ostrog. When in sight of the convent, they were again 
frightened by the approach of a small company of horse, and gave 
themselves up for lost until they recognized Mr. Osborne at their head, 
and understood that this was a party which had come out in search of 
them. They were taken to the convent, kindly cared for by the monks, 
and the next morning proceeded to Cettinje, Lord Saunters's ideas of 
the Eastern question materially changed by his captivity. He had seen 
such acts of violence, and had been in such mortal terror and danger, 
that he was not proud of England's -proteges. He had an interview 



LORD SAUNTERS IS TAKEN PRISONER. 



lOI 



with Prince Nicholas, and assured SalHe thereafter that his opinion in 
regard to the Turks had greatly altered. 

"They are too blasted insolent, you know," he said, as they left 
Cettinje for Cattaro. " The Prince tells me that they have impoverished 
their provinces by taxes which the poor people haven't the money to 
pay, and that they have let loose upon them a lot of Circassian beggars, 
who have swarmed over Bulgaria, driving the poor Bulgarians out of 
their homes, and occupying them with- 
out so much as saying, ' By your leave.' 
Then, there are a lot of other grievances, 
of which Mr. Evanova tells me, enough 
to convince me that the matter ouorht to 

o 

be looked into." 

" I am glad to hear you say so, 
father," said Algernon. " Mr. Osborne 
has invited me to make a tour with him 
through Bulgaria, and I should like to 
avail myself of this opportunity." 

" That is hardly practicable, certainly 
not just now," replied Lord Saunters. 
" You know we have made an appoint- 
ment to meet the Prince of Wales at 

Athens. But I shall certainly run up to Constantinople after our inter- 
view with the Prince, and see our ambassador. Sir Henry Elliot, and 
sift this matter thoroughly." 

Mr. Norcross looked up at the mention of Constantinople, and 
seemed about to speak. He evidently thought better of it on 
consideration, for he said nothing. 

" If you have determined to go to Constantinople," suggested Mr. 
Osborne, " and Miss Benton and her brother desire to visit Miss New- 
ton at Samokov, it will be altogether the best plan for them to travel 
with you. There is a railroad from Constantinople to Philippopolis, and 




MR. NORCROSS LOOKED UP 



I02 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

at the American Mission at Constantinople a suitable escort can be 
easily obtained to the mission at Samokov." 

Algernon Saunters brought forward a convincing argument in 
the suggestion that if Miss Benton put off her visit to her mis- 
sionary friend until after seeing the Davenports, Turkish affairs 
might become so complicated that it would be impossible for her 
to make it at all. 

Every one united in urging Sallie to continue her journey with the 
Saunterses, and she finally agreed to do so, writing Melicent that she 
would use all her powers of persuasion to induce Alice to leave the 
country with her, and that her visit was not given up, but simply 
postponed. 

From Cettinje the party proceeded in company to the seaport of 
Cattaro. Their first glimpse of the city as it lay beneath them, the red 
roofs and white walls of its beautiful villas relieved by rich foliage, was 
one of enchanting loveliness. 

Here they bade good-by to Mr. Osborne and to Mr. Evanova. 
" I shall hope to see you again before long at Samokov," said the 
correspondent. 

" And in the mean time I wish you would send letters also to ' The 
London Trimmer,' " said Algernon Saunters. " It is a paper which 
always sides with our party, and it has taken too light a view of this 
business. I will write to the editor, recommending you." 

" Should you see Alice before I do," was Sallie's last word at part- 
ing, " do advise her for the best, and not let her run any danger by 
remaining in the country if there is to be trouble." 

Trajan Evanova heard this message. " I shall also see Miss Newton 
soon," he remarked, " and I will look carefully to her safety. No harm 
can come to her at my parents' home in the mountains, and that is open 
to her if she chooses to remain in Bulgaria and take her chances with 
the people she has come to help." 

" I think I would rather she would leave the country," Sallie replied. 



LORD SAUXTERS IS TAKEN PRISOAER. iq-> 

" But I thank you heartily for your hospitable offer. We will decide 
when I visit her next month." 

Thus it happened that Sallie's plans were completely changed, and 
that, instead of speeding toward Vienna, to the friends who were so 
impatiently expecting her, this beautiful autumn day found her taking 
the steamer at Cattaro for Athens, via the Ionian Isles. 



IQA THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



CHAPTER IX. 



MELICENT AND CAPTAIN MULLER. 



AND all this time what of Sallie's good knight ? 
It had been a great disappointment to Captain Muller not to 
find Sallie on the Vienna train. How eagerly he scanned his fellow- 
passengers at the station, and when the train stopped he walked up and 
down the platform in the vain hope of discovering her in one of the 
compartments. He came to the natural conclusion that she had missed 
the train, and he determined to stop at Perchtoldsdorf and take the next 
express for Vienna, sure that he would find her upon it. He strolled 
into the old church, and listened to its history of blood and fire : for it 
was here in 1683 that the citizens took refuge from the Turks, and from 
the church, having been promised mercy, they marched out to a fright- 
ful massacre, over thirty-eight hundred butchered in cold blood. He 
grew angry as he listened, and on his way to the station he purchased 
a paper in which he read of the probability that such scenes w^ere soon 
to be repeated. 

" I wish Germany would take a hand in driving the Turks into 
Asia," he said to himself. " I should like to enlist for such a crusade." 
And then he thought of Sallie and her fixed disapprobation of war. 
" I wonder how she thinks those fellows are to be managed, anyway," 
he thought, and then the train came in, and he began another fruitless 
search for Sallie, and finally sprang on board, much dejected by her 
absence. So confident had he been of finding her that he had not 
asked the address of her friends, • Mrs. and Miss Davenport. He 
reflected, however, that they could easily be found through the police, 



MELICENT AAD CAPTAIN MULLER. 



107 



and, before going to his hotel, he left an inquiry at the proper office, a 
natural enough proceeding on his part, but one which was destined to 
give the ladies some annoyance in future. 

A Russian detective happened to be at the bureau. He had come 
to Vienna to trace a Nihilist, Natocha Melniketzky. There was some- 
thing in the description which Captain Miillergave of Melicent Davenport 
w^hich attracted his attention. " Meli- 
cent, — Melniketz ! " he murmured to 
himself, " the disguise is very thin ! "' 
and his beads of eyes twinkled with 
malicious exultation. The captain no- 
ticed him only as an unusually homely 
man, with phenomenally large ears. 
Later on, the Davenports were to have 
the honor of a more intimate acquaintance. 

As far as concerned the captain's im- 
mediate purpose, interviewing the police 
was the best thing which he could have 
done, and an official speedily sent him 
the address for which he was in search. 

The Davenports had not yet received 
Sallie's letter explaining her change of plans, and were consequently 
in daily expectation of her arrival. 

Captain Mullerwas much cheered, and, to pass away the intervening 
time, proposed an excursion to the chateau of Eisgrub, the most beauti- 
ful of the ninety-nine different residences of Prince Lichtenstein. 

The day was a charming one, and they spent it in rambling through 
the great orangery and the hot-houses with their nine hundred orange- 
trees and their fifteen hundred aloes, and about the superb park, said to 
be the finest in Austria, coming upon many surprises in landscape- 
gardening and picturesque buildings : a mosque with minarets, a 
pagoda, an artificial ruined casde, a fisherman's cottage, Greek temples 




A RUSSIAN POLICE AGENT. 



I08 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

and statues, triumphal arches, an aviary and a menagerie, lakes with 
boats, parterres of brilliant flowers, and beautiful views, 

Mrs. Davenport rested in a little temple to the Muses while Melicent 
and the captain visited the dairy ; and neither of them could have told, 



CASTLE OF EISGRUB. 



on their return, whether the Prince von Lichtenstein preferred Jerseys 
to Devons, for the captain embraced the opportunity to unburden his 
heart and seek Melicent's sympathy and advice. He was sure of both, 
for had she not sheltered and protected him when he was a spy in Paris ? 
And where is the generous-hearted girl who does not take an interest in 



MEL/CENT AND CAPTAIN MULLER. 



109 



a friend's love-affair, especially when she is herself happily betrothed f 
Melicent thoroughly appreciated the blessedness which had come into 
her own life with the devotion of James Osborne, and she could not 
understand how any woman could be content without just such a true 
and noble affection. She was, therefore, delighted to hear the captain 
confess his interest in Sallie. 

" I am sure she loves you ! " she exclaimed impulsively, and then, 
realizing from the great light in the captain's face that she was encour- 
aging him far more than she had any warrant to do, she modified her 
assertion : "That is, I am sure she will love 
you. She always took a very great interest 
in you, in those old days in France. Why 
didn't you propose to her at Versailles ? " 

" I did." 

"And she rejected you?" — Melicent 
looked aghast. " Did she give any reason ? " 

" She said she could never marry a 
soldier." 

" I don't wonder, after all the horrible 
things she had seen. And didn't you love 
her enough to change your profession ? " 

"I did not think that I did. I did not 
know then how much I loved her ; besides, there was nothing else for 
me to do. But now " — 

" Now you are willing to give up the army?" 

" And now perhaps it is too late." 

" Oh, I think not ! Sallie is not engaged to any one else, or she 
would have told me. I believe she has waited for you all this time. 
She would have married lono; aoro if she had not cared for some one. 
She is a very attractive girl, you know." 

" I know it," with a groan. 

"Well, she has come to Europe again, and you have anotl^.er 
opportunity." 




MELICENT. 



no 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



"Do you think so?" exclaimed the captain, deHghted ; and he 
took Mehcent's hand, and pressed it with such enthusiasm that some 
people who were passing remarked that it was evident those young 
persons must be very much in love with one another. 

Captain Muller lived on the hope which Melicent extended to him 
for several days. He was placidly blissful, until the arrival of the 





THE DANUBE AT LINZ. 



letter which announced Sallie's intention of visiting Alice before joining 
the Davenports. This plunged him into an abyss of despair. "This 
does not look much as if she had come to Europe to give me a second 
opportunity," he said gloomily. 

Melicent looked at him in surprise and indignation. " I never said 
that ! " she exclaimed. " I said she had come, and you have your 
opportunity, — if you have pluck enough to make it, I meant. Such a 
girl as Sallle must be sought. But it is all right : you will have time to 



MELICENT AND CAPTAIN MULLER. j j j 

get your discharge from the army. Mamma and I intend to spend the 
winter in St. Petersburg, where I am to study medicine. I do not 
know how much I shall practise it in after-life, but if war breaks out 
anywhere, mamma and I will join the Red Cross. Now, Sallie says she 
intends to stay with Alice only long enough to induce her to leave the 
country, and that then she will bring her to us. So you have only to 
break your connection with the German army, and repair to your sister's 
at St. Petersburg, and you will find Sallie with us, and all will be well." 

" And, after I have thrown up my career, what if I find that it is all 
a mistake, and she does not care for me ? " 

" If you are so coldly calculating as all that, it might be safer to 
write her first, and bargain about it : your epaulets for her heart ; but 
if I were Sallie, I should feel much more complimented to feel that you 
had risked everything, ' to win or lose it all.' " 

Shortly after this, Mrs. Davenport and Melicent removed their resi- 
dence to St. Petersburg. Captain Mliller accompanied them on their 
journey as far as Linz, for Mrs. Davenport had chosen a slightly circui- 
tous route, in order that they might enjoy the views on the noblest part 
of the Danube. 

As the steamer ploughed its way up the river in the moonlight of a 
superb night, a string-band in the saloon played the Landler's Waltz, 
and Melicent sang softly a well-worn song, which somehow lost all its 
association with itinerant musicians, and although it was October, and 
not June, seemed very appropriate to that perfect night : — 

" Can I forget that night in June 

Upon the Danube River? 
We listened to the Landler's tune. 

And watched the moonbeams quiver. 
I oft since then have watched the moon, 

But never, love, ah, never, never 
Can I forget that night in June 

Upon the Danube River," etc. 



;iI2 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

" The boat kept measure with its oars ; 

The music rose in snatches 
From peasants dancing on the shores 

In distant songs and catches. 
I know not why that Landler rang 

Through all my soul, but never 
Can I forget that night in June 

Upon the Danube River," etc. 

There was another song which had pleasant associations for Captain 
Miiller, — a Httle folk-melody, with the refrain, — 

" When I come, when I come, when I come to thee again." 

And now the Landler's took its place beside it. 

At Linz the captain bade farewell to the Davenports, and returned 
to his home, to write the letter which was to disturb the even current 
of Sallie's life, while Mrs. Davenport and Melicent turned their faces 
northward. There was a sharp little man, with a wrinkled face and 
large ears, who looked over Melicent's shoulder as she bought the 
tickets. His keen eye caught the destination, St. Petersburg. " Ah- 
ha ! " he said to himself, " it was very 'cute in you to take this round- 
about way. No one less up to your tricks than I would have imagined, 
when you left Vienna for Linz, that you were going to Russia ; but I 
:am on your track, my beauty, I am on your track. You are so fond of 
travelling, I wonder now how you would like to take a trip to Siberia?" 



GREECE. 



113 



CHAPTER X. 




GREECE. 

LD friends are best," Lord Saunters 
happened to remark carelessly, 
one day. Sallie had not forgotten 
her old friend. The effort to put 
C Captain Miiller entirely from her thoughts was 
more than even her resolute will could accom- 
plish. But she never faltered : she never spoke 
of him, or drooped or languished after the 
approved fashion of love-lorn maidens. She 
interested herself in the absorbing questions of 
the day, and grew more and more absorbed in 
the problem of Turkish occupation of the Euro- 
pean provinces. She talked over the matter 
a great deal with Algernon Saunters, and in- 
vented many peaceful solutions of the difficulty, whose adoption, he said, 
would have done honor to a council of nations, and he regretted sin- 
cerely that there was no probability of an advance of civilization during 
their lifetime sufficient to carry them out. They read a great deal of 
Oriental literature together, Mr. Norcross joining them in this recrea- 
tion, for he had a very clever trick of turning Persian sonnets into 
English verse. " Norcross, you should have been an Oriental," Alger- 
non said one day, " you are so thoroughly steeped with their spirit. 
Give us again the war-song of the Ottomans." 

" It is not my own translation," Mr. Norcross replied ; " it was ren- 
dered into English by a Mr. Homes, a compatriot of yours. Miss 
Benton." As Mr. Norcross repeated the vehement lines, a fierce, 




I 14 ' THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

untamed spirit seemed to glow in his eyes, and the listeners knew that 
for the moment he made the sentiment his own. 

" ' All our hopes and cares are for our country ; 
With our own bodies will we form her ramioarts. 
We are Ottomans ! A bloody shroud 
Shall be our robe of glory. 
Refrain : We march our every step in battle, 

Shouting the profession of our faith.^ * 

We are Ottomans ! We sacrifice our lives, 
And we secure Paradise and glory. 

On our waving standard see the bloody sword ! 
Soul-fear enters not our mountains or our plains ; 
In every hill and vale a lion crouches. 
Watching over every acre of our soil. 
Refrain : We march our every step, etc. 

Let the cannon roar. Let the iron hail 
Open the gates of Paradise to our brave comrades. 
What have we found in this world 
That we should fear to die .'' 
Refrain : We march our every step in battle,' " etc. 

" Is it not grand?" Algernon asked. 

" It seems unutterably sad to me," Sallie replied, " that last line, 
'What have we found in this world,' with its implication that we have 
found nothing for which we care to live. No Christian could feel so." 

"The utter hopelessness of Orientalism has often struck me"" 

Algernon replied. " Do you remember how Omar Khayyam speaks 

of life ? 

" ' 'Tis but a tent, where takes his one day's rest 
A sultan to the realm of Death addrest. 
The sultan rises, and the AdsV farash 
Strikes, and prepares it for another guest. 
A moment's halt, a momentary taste 
Of being from the well amid the waste. 
And lo ! the phantom caravan has reached 
The nothing it set out from. Oh, make haste ! '" 

1 La Allah ill allah ne Mohammed ressoul Allah. — "No god but God, Mohammed prophet of 
God." — From " The Gospel in all La7ids.'" 



GREECE, J J c 

"I see the necessity of making haste," said SalHe ; "but I take 
exception to the assertion that everything begins and ends in nothing." 

" It seems very hkely to me," rephed Mr. Norcross, "and I object 
most decidedly to making haste. I woukl rather drift forever with the 
tide, as we seem to be doing to-day, careless whither it leads me." 

October's perfect weather calmed the sea to glass as the steamer 
left the Adriatic, and skirted the western coast of Albania and Greece. 

"The Albanians are many of them Mussulmans, are they not?" 
Gus asked. 

" Yes, indeed," Sallie replied. " Do you not remember Lord 
Byron's lines ? 

" ' Land of Albania ! let me bend mine eyes 
On thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men ! 
The Cross descends, thy minarets arise, 

And the pale C^-escent sparkles in the glen.' " 

"The Suliotes live just over there," said Lord Saunters. "When I 
was a young man, I thought there was no martial poetry so stirring as 
Byron's ' Song of the Suliote,' and, really, it is quite appropriate to-day. 

" ' Oh, who is more brave than a dark Suliote, 
In his snowy camis and his shaggy capote ? 
To the wolf and the vulture he leaves his wild flock, 
And descends to the plam, like the stream from the rock. 

I talk not of mercy ; I talk not of fear : 
He neither must know who would serve the Vizier. 
Since the days of the Prophet the Crescent ne'er saw 
A chief ever glorious like Ali Pashaw. 

Dark Mukhtar, his son, to the Danube is sped ; 
Let the yellow-haired Giaours ^ view his horse-tail with dread. 
When his Delhis come dashing in blood o'er the banks, 
How few shall escape from the Muscovite ranks ! ' " 

On they glided past the beautiful Ionian Isles. One by one they 
sighted Corfu, Santa Maura, Ithaca, and Cephalonia. The steamer 

^ Russian infidels. 



ii6 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



Stopped at Patras, but did not enter the Gulf of Corinth, much to the 
disappointment of the young people, who had hoped to visit the ruins 
of that once beautiful and pleasure-loving city. 

"There is very little left to interest you," 
Lord Saunters assured them. 

" I should like to find and sketch there just 
one Corinthian capital," Sallie said. "That 
is such a beautiful legend of how the 
Greek architect found the acanthus springing 
through the basket, its graceful leaves, re- 
pressed by the tile on the top, curling down- 
ward, and so suggesting to him the idea of 
the most beautiful of the architectural orders." 
" I doubt," replied Lord Sauntiers, "whether 
there is a single Corinthian capital left in 
Corinth. I believe there are seven Doric 
pillars, however." 

" Now, what I would like," said Gus, 
" would be to explore the old race-course, 
the site of the famous Isthmian games. I 
would not ask to pick up any columns or capitals — a horseshoe would 
suit me, and would make a very good relic." 

" You can visit Corinth very easily from Athens, if you like," Lord 
Saunters explained. " A steamer runs down from the Piraeus to 
Kalamaki in about three hours, then you can take a carriage to the 
Acro-Corinthus, the old citadel, from which one of the finest views in 
all Greece is obtainable, and return to Athens the same day." 

" I have always thought of Corinth as being on the west coast of 
Greece," Gus remarked ; " but of course the isthmus is so narrow that 
she had the advantag^e of traffic on both seas." 

" Lechaeum was the ancient port on the west, and Kenchrea to the 
east," replied Lord Saunters. "The best way to visit the coast of 




IONIC AND CORINTHIAN 
COLUMNS. 



GREECE. 



117 




SPORTS OF AX 
CIENT GREECE. 




Greece Is in one's own private yacht ; then one can go where he 

pleases, and stay as long as the fancy takes him, and he is always 

sure of having good accommodations for 

the night. I think I shall make such a 

trip one of these days, and if you young 

people are on the Continent, I invite you to 

accompany us. Would you like to do so ? " 

" Just wouldn't I ! " exclaimed Gus, 
while Sallie expressed her appreciation 
more gracefully. 

" Then," said Lord Saunters, " we must plan for it for 
another summer. Ithaca, over there, is said to be quite 
interesting. They show you the castle of Ulysses, where 
Penelope waited during her husband's absence. Read 
the 'Odyssey* this winter, for it is the best guide-book to the island. 
In Byron's time, and a little later, it used to be quite the fashionable 
thinof for Enorlishmen to do the Isles of Greece. Lord Houehton has 
written some clever poems on them. But, with all their charms, Eng- 
land has little cause to love this insignificant chain of islands. They 
have changed owners oftener and caused their masters more vexation 
than any bit of country of the same area in Europe." 

Gus pricked up his ears, and his Lordship continued. 

"In 1797 the Venetians gave up their possession of theni to 
France. Then Russia, Turkey, France, and Great Britain each took a 
turn in owning- them, and in snatchinor them from one another, until 
18 1 5, when they were formed into a republic, under the protection of 
Great Britain. We did everything we could for the improvement of the 
country — laid out a hundred thousand pounds per ainiuiii upon it. 
But the ungrateful islanders wanted none of our protection, and were 
continually giving us all the trouble they could. In 1858 Mr. Glad- 
stone was sent out to see what was the cause of all this row, and he 
soon ascertained that nothing would suit the beggars but complete 



jjg THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

independence from Great Britain, and annexation to Greece. In 1863 
the election of the son of the King of Denmark, the brother of Alex- 
andra, as King of Greece, under the name of George I., gave England 
a chance to get rid of her unprofitable possessions, and they were 
turned over to Greece as a sort of good-will 
offering, wedding present, or that sort of 
thing, in 1864." 

" Eno-land's colonies do not seem to have 

o 

generally appreciated her efforts in their be- 
half," Gus remarked dryly. 

" And yet," Sallie added quickly, 
" there is no question but that 
wherever her fiao^ has waved civili- 
zation has followed." 

Every headland and island, every 
port or distant mountain, which they 
now passed bore some classic name. penelope. 

As they rounded the rugged points 

of Peloponnesus, they ' recalled the wanderings of Ulysses, while his 
faithful Penelope worked in Ithaca at her tapestry. 

And now they were nearing the Cyclades, or circling islands, so 
named because they were supposed to have circled around Delos, 
where Diana and Apollo were born. And now they have passed Milo, 
where the most beautiful and noblest of the statues of Venus was 
discovered ; and at last they have reached Poros, the naval station of 
the kingdom, at the entrance of the Gulf of yElgina. 

All the way they have been passing and meeting flocks of sailing- 
vessels and small steamers, the merchant marine of Greece, plying 
between the islands and the principal cities of not only the Mediterra- 
nean, but of Western Europe. Here they pass a ship bearing the 
Russian flag, laden with Vino Santo, or Santorin, which the Russians 
love so well, from the volcanic island of Thera ; here is Malmsey for 




GREECE. 



119 



England, from Tenos ; marble chimney-pieces, and other carvings, on 
their way to France ; with Zante currants, honey from Hymettus, olive- 
oil, figs, silk, and sponges, for Leghorn, Trieste, Palermo, Smyrna, and 
Constantinople. 

Gus had been so much impressed by all this display of shipping 
that he had expected to see a considerable navy, and was much sur- 
prised when told that nearly all the men-of- 
war in the harbor were English ships, which 
had gathered to greet the Prince of Wales, 
the navy of Greece consisting only of one 
ironclad, six screw-steamers, four schooners, 
two cutters, and the royal yacht. 

" Why, it is almost as bad," the boy ex- 
claimed, " as our American navy ! " 

" I am proud of the fact that our navy 
is so insignificant ! " Sallie exclaimed. " It 
proves that the United States has the respect 
of the other powers, and does not need to 
bully them." 

At the Piraeus, the port of Athens, they saw 
the Serapis, which had just arrived with the 
Prince of Wales, and witnessed his meeting with 

the King of Greece, who came alongside in his royal yacht. They had 
the further honor of proceeding to Athens by the same train with their 
Royal Highnesses, and, as Lord and Lady Saunters were acquainted 
with the Prince, Sallie was presented in her simple gray travelling-dress. 

The Prince greeted Algernon Saunters most cordially, and repeated 
the invitation which had already been extended, to accompany him to 
India. 

Algernon, while making suitable acknowledgments for the favor 
shown, feared that it would not be possible to accept ; but Lord 
Saunters drowned his son's remonstrance with effusive and grateful 




IN DOUBT. 



I20 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

acquiescence. " What do you mean, sir, " he asked his son, a few- 
hours later, "by cutting yourself out of such a magnificent oppor- 
tunity ? Have you forgotten that this is precisely the object for which 
we have made this journey? Have you forgotten that you are a second 
son, and have your career to make ? " 

" I might join the Prince at Bombay, if you insist upon it," Alger- 
non replied ; " but I would really very much like to accompany you to 
Constantinople. I am so much interested in this question of the inde- 
pendence of the Turkish principalities ! " 

" Stuff and nonsense ! " replied Lord Saunters irascibly. " I will 
look into the matter as far as is necessary, though I assure you that my 
main object in visiting Constantinople is to forbid payment on that 
check which was extorted from me under circumstances which amount 
to simple theft. It is all very well to have exalted ideas of humanity, 
and all that, but one must look after one's own interests as well. Go 
out with the Prince, and, if you have a fancy for taking a tour through 
Turkey, do so on your way home." 

"Give me two days to consider the matter," Algernon replied, with 
a grave and troubled expression. 

A few hours more, and the party were domiciled at the Hotel 
d'Angleterre, in Athens. Modern Athens is not in itself a picturesque 
city, but the Acropolis still towers above it, crowned by its magnificent 
ruins, chief of which is the Parthenon. 

Gus had been "cramming " Fergusson's admirable work on archi- 
tecture during the voyage, and he had learned that the Parthenon is 
built entirely of white marble, and is the finest example of the Doric 
style extant. That it was designed for the place which it occupies in 
so skilful a manner that, while the lines of the pillars appear perfectly 
straight, to obtain this effect they are in reality constructed in accurate 
curves to counteract the illusions of perspective. 

Sallie had already decided that she must make a sketch of the 
beautiful little temple (the Erectheum), whose portico is supported by 



illl 







GREECE. 



123 




CARYATIDES. 



columns of female figures called Caryatides. Sallie's sketch-book was 
already filling- with Greek coiffures and jewelry and the honeysuckle 
ornament, a conventional design, adapted from the buds of the honey- 
suckle. 

Gus, thinking of the story of the origin of the Corinthian, the 
honeysuckle ornament, and other vegetable forms, was planning an 
essay on " Botany in Architecture ; " but Lord Saunters advised him to 
wait for this, until he had an oppor- 
tunity to study mediaeval Gothic and 
the Renaissance. 

Both of the young people were 
eager to set out at once for the Acrop- 
olis ; but Lord Saunters, referring to 
the daily newspaper, found an an- 
nouncement that there would be a 
grand illumination of the Acropolis 
that evening, in honor of the Prince ; that the fireworks would be 
superb, and it might be well to obtain their first impressions of the 
place from this unusual spectacle. 

How odd it seemed to be reading the daily newspaper in Neo- 
Hellenic, a language differing very slightly from classical Greek ! Sallie 
could read it without difficulty, and Gus found it easier than Homer. 
" I shall get Tricoupi's History of the Greek Revolution," Sallie 
announced, " and begin to read it here." 

" Do, my dear," advised Lady Saunters. " I think it will do for 
our Friday readings." 

" I am afraid we may find it too exciting," Sallie replied. " You 
know it describes the struggle with the Turks, and their final victory in 
1820, when, by the countenance of the European powers, they were 
able to establish an independent kingdom." 

" And there are some Pallikars, or Braves," said Algernon Saunters, 
looking from the hotel window. " You know that when Thessaly was 



124 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

ceded to the Turks, these people left their homes, and migrated to 
Southern Greece rather than remain under Turkish domination." 

Gus looked out, and saw a group of wiry, fierce-looking men, wear- 
ing red caps, white shirts, and heavy gold-embroidered jackets, with 
very full white kilts. They were armed to the teeth, and were followed 
by servants loaded down by more weapons. 

" These men would like nothing better," said Algernon, " than to 
have a general war, which would give them license to fall upon the 
Turk. England will have to keep a fleet in the Piraeus to preserve 
peace." 

"Oh, let them fight it out!" Gus exclaimed. "It seems to me 
this peace policy, which only serves to keep the weaker party from 
defending itself against bullies, is getting to be rather a chestnut." 

Sallie was horrified, and expected to see Gus sternly rebuked ; but,, 
to her astonishment, Algernon Saunters only smiled. 

T\i&fete in the evening proved to be a very brilliant one, and Sallie 
was delighted that her visit to Athens had chanced to fall upon such 
an exceptional time. The party rode out to the Acropolis in open car- 
riages, and watched the fairy-like effect. First, the grand mass of ruins, 
outlined vaguely against the starlit sky ; the waiting crowd, standing 
in expectant hush ; then the flash of the Bengal lights, and the noble 
pillars, with all their matchless symmetry, were brought into strong 
relief against the strong shadows. 

"It is wonderful! it is wonderful!" Sallie exclaimed, enthusiasti- 
cally, and even Lord Saunters admitted that " it capped any similar 
show " he had ever seen. Only Lady Saunters was dissatisfied. " The 
temples are so frightfully out of repair," she complained : " not at all 
kept up, like our Houses of Parliament, my dear." 

Sallie was charmed with the little Temple of the Wingless Victory, 
the delicacy and grace of whose Ionic columns, with their curling ram's- 
horn capitals, contrasted with fine effect with the Titanic strength of 
the Doric pillars of the Parthenon. 



GREECE. 



12 



" I understand," she said simply, as she rode homeward with Alger- 
non and her brother, " the meaning and beauty of the promise, ' Him 
that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God.' " 

" I have changed my mind about that essay," Gus remarked. " I 




THE TEMPLE OF THE WINGLESS VICTORY. 

shall lay aside 'Vegetable Forms in Arehitecture,' and write on 
' Pillars,' — the Doric, the Ionic, the Corinthian, and the Car)'atides. 
which, I suppose, illustrate best that idea of our being pillars in the 

church." 

" It seems to me," Algernon said curtly, " that most of us arc only 

pilasters." 



128 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

" I do not quite understand," said Sallie. 

" Gus is enough of an architect to explain the difference between a 
pilaster and a pillar," Algernon replied. 

"I catch on," Gus exclaimed irreverently. "A pilaster is some- 
times only an ornamental pillar, fastened to the wall, apparently aiding 
in the support of the temple, but not necessary to its construction." 

" I am afraid most of us are little more," said Algernon, who was 
dissatisfied with himself. " I am strongly tempted," he continued, " to 
give up my proposed trip to India, and to return to England vz'a the 
Turkish provinces, prosecuting in this way the investigations which I 
have begun." 

He was not thoroughly selfish, and he had been strongly stirred by 
what he had seen and heard. His English sense of justice was out- 
raged by the mismanagement and oppression exercised by Turkish 
rule. "What would you advise me to do?" he asked. "I am 
ashamed and indignant that England should support such outrages." 

" Then, why don't you collect the facts, and lay them before the 
English public ? " 

"That is just it. I am afraid that I shall become a fanatic, and go 
back to England howling for reform." The young man became 
uneasy under Sallie's quiet, steady gaze. It was impossible not to be 
entirely frank, with those eyes reading his soul. " And then, after all, 
it's none of my business, you know, and I am not quite ready to throw 
away all my chances in life for the sake of championing the oppressed. 
If I go out to India with the Prince, I am likely to receive an appoint- 
ment. I am only a beggar of a second son, you know. There, 
I've made a clean breast of it all. What do you think of the 
situation ? " 

" I think you are in just the position of that rich young man whom 
Jesus loved, and whom he asked to leave all and follow him. You 
have position and influence : if you attend to this matter, which appeals 
to your heart and conscience, you may effect great things for humanity, 



GREECE. 



129 




AT THE MUSEUM. 



and find the grand opportunity of your life — that of working with 
God." 

" And do you ask this sacrifice of me ? " 

" I have no rieht to ask it. It is not a matter in which I am at all 
concerned, except as your earnest friend ; but I think Christ asks it of 
you. Still, you must decide it for yourself. Is the demand too great ? " 

" If, as you say, you are not at all concerned in it, yes, I think it is." 

The carriage had stopped before the hotel, and Gus had sprung 
out. Algernon descended, and ex- 
tended his hand to assist her to 
aliofht. The action was common- 
place enough, but there was a look 
of unspeakable entreaty on his up- 
turned face. A pang of pity shot 
through Sallie's honest, kindly heart, 
as she realized for the first time 

what this meant, and, like the young man in the Scripture to whom 
she had just referred, they both " went away sorrowful." 

It was the last time that she was to see Algernon Saunters for 
many months, and, although she had not been to blame, the memory 
of his face was not a pleasant one. 

The next day the English division of the party passed in making 
calls upon their acquaintances, and in driving out to the royal country- 
seat. Sallie and Gus spent it industriously in the museums, especially 
interested in the collections made by Dr. Schliemann. In the evening 
there was a state banquet given by the King and Queen of Greece to 
the Prince, but, as the young Americans were not invited, they con- 
tented themselves with viewing the fireworks in front of the Temple of 
Jupiter Olympus, and with hearing an account of the banquet Irom 
Lady Saunters. On Wednesday the royal festivities closed with a 
luncheon to the King and Queen of Greece, given by the Prince, on 
board the Serapis. In the evening the ro)-al ship steamed awa)-, with 



j^o THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

Algernon Saunters on board. He had left without bidding Sallie 
good-by, and, to the surprise of Gus, for whom he left a fine set of 
Greek photographs, without leaving any message for her. 

On the next day our party made their proposed excursion to 
Corinth, accomplishing more in one short day than our space will 
permit us to chronicle (since our story is not of Greece, but of Turkey 
and Russia) , and on Friday they left the Piraeus for Constantinople. 



FmST IMPKESSIOA'S OF TURKEY. j^j 



CHAPTER XI. 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF TURKEY. 



AS Sallie sailed up the Bosphorus, and entered the Golden Horn, 
it seemed to her that she had never seen anything half so beau- 
tiful as this first view of Constantinople. The radiant white city stepped 
down to the sea by a series of terraces ; its domes and minarets and 
glittering palaces rising from gardens and groves of cypress, and 
shining in the morning sunlight like a vision of the New Jerusalem. 
The glamour was not entirely dispelled by a nearer view, for, though 
she caught glimpses of narrow, crooked streets and of much filth and 
poverty, still even the poorer quarters were extremely picturesque, and 
they passed many magnificent stone houses, built in the ornate Oriental 
style of architecture. Chief among these were the Seraglio and the 
Mosque of St. Sophia. The, bazaars, a collection of over six hundred 
shops, all under one roof, interested Lady Saunters greatly. Each 
little street was devoted to one particular class of goods : for instance, 
the niches on one little lane were filled entirely with amber ; strings of 
beads, mouthpieces for pipes, and ornaments of various kinds, all 
carved from this beautiful substance. Other streets were devoted 
individually to the display of silks, rugs, scarfs, perfumes, brazen 
lamps and pitchers, inlaid and painted furniture, pipes, weapons, 
slippers, embroideries, and a hundred other articles. 

But the people themselves were the most interesting of all. Here 
was a gray-bearded merchant, sitting cross-legged in his bazaar, for all 
the world like a picture from the "Arabian Nights;" and here was 
Scheherezade, veiled, with the exception of one coal-black eye ; and 
the donkey-drivers were jostling each other, and the water-carriers 



1^2 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

bawling, just as she had expected. They were all so interested that 
they strolled from one street to another, not noticing where they were 
going, until Lord Saunters suddenly discovered that they had become 
separated from Mr. Norcross, and that they were lost. He attempted 
to inquire the way to Pera of a passer-by, but he either did not or 
would not understand. It was in vain that he reiterated the word 
" English." A shrugging of the shoulders and a spreading of the 
palms was the only response. Sallie saw that they were in a more 
crowded quarter of the city. Presently she was jostled by a Turk with 
an evil expression, who muttered curses instead of apologies ; and a 
crowd collected, pointing and jeering, while the street boys threw mud 
and small stones. 

Lord Saunters was greatly incensed. " We will see if English 
tourists are to be insulted on the streets of Constantinople ! " he 
exclaimed, and began to bluster in his haughty way, when an unsavory 
vegetable hit him squarely in the face. At that instant, a gentleman 
in the costume of a European sprang from a bazaar, offered his right 
arm to Lady Saunters and his left to Sallie, and led the party quickly 
out of the mob, to the underground railroad which connects Constan- 
tinople with Pera, its European suburb. 

"These are unsettled times," he remarked, "and it is hardly safe 
for strangers to ramble about this part of the city." 

At Pera they seemed suddenly to emerge into a European city, so 
great was the change from Stamboul, the true Turkish Constantinople. 
Gus remarked on the English and* French signs over the shops, the 
foreign post-offices, the Christian churches, an Italian opera, and a 
circulating library. They established themselves at the Hotel d'Angle- 
terre. (Sallie had observed that, no matter where they were, they 
stopped at the Hotel dAngleterre.) His Lordship called immediately 
at the British Embassy, and reported the disappearance of Mr. 
Norcross. 

He was told that there was probably no cause for alarm : that he 




SKl-TCHES AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 



'OJ 



FIRST lAfPRESSlONS OF TURKEY. 



135 




LORD SAUNTERS DEPRESSED. 



.!, doubtless, simply lost his way in the crowd, and would soon find 
. m. He received, on the other hand, very little encouragement in 

ard to the ransom which had been 

•.. rted from him. Diplomatic business 

s much involved, and there seemed to 

no possibility of laying the matter 

lore the Sultan. He might call on 

bankers, and leave orders to refuse 

., payment of the check when pre- 

^ted ; but this seemed to Lord Saun- 

hardly an honorable thing to do. 

He returned to the hotel, depressed 

irritable. 

' I shall go to the American Mission to-morrow," he said to Sallie, 
; d see whether I can procure proper escort for you to your friends. 

If not, I strongly advise your not attempt- 
ing the journey." 

The visit to the American Mission 
proved more interesting than they had 
anticipated, and here Sallie found a letter 
awaiting her from Alice. It was a long, 
enthusiastic letter, full of delight at the 
comine of her friend. Alice did not be- 
\\ lieve that there was serious danger, cer- 
^' tainly not for foreigners, and she would 
count the days until Sallie's arrival. A 
Mr. Humphrey would leave Constantinople 
soon, on his return to Philippopolis. He 
was an earnest missionar}'. just the one to 
take charge of them ; and she had written requesting him to conduct 
the young people on their journey. 

Gus was not over- pleased with this prospect. He insisted that Mr. 




GUS S IDEA OF MR. HUMPHREY, 



136 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



Humphrey would prove to be a disagreeable, priggish, and sanctimo- 
nious old fraud ; and he drew such an amusing portrait of Mr. Hum- 
phrey, as he imagined him, that Sallie was convulsed. " He will think it 

wicked to drink cider, I know," said Gus, "be- 
cause it works on Sunday. And here's good- 
by to every speck of fun for the rest of the trip." 
" We will see," Sallie replied hopefully. "I, 
for one, am so thankful that on this Sunday we 
can attend a Christian church, and hear the 
dear old, familiar hymns ! " The day was passed 
quietly. They attended services at the Ameri- 
can Mission. Before entering the church, they 
took a lingering view of the beautiful mina- 
retted city, and, as they took their seats, Sallie 
started to hear Dr. Doddridge's hymn, which seemed to have been 
written for this very place and hour. 



I (('//[. 




MR. HUMPHREY APPEARS. 



" See Salem's golden spires 
In beauteous prospect rise, 
And flowers of Paradise 

In rich profusion spring ; 
The Sun of Glory gilds the path, 
And dear companions sing." 



That afternoon, the servant brought in Mr. Humphrey's card. Lady 
Saunters descended with Sallie, and they were surprised to recognize 
the gentleman who had rescued them from their unpleasant predica- 
ment on their arrival. He had an intellectual face, refined and pleas- 
ing manners ; he was dressed in quiet, good taste, and he presented in 
every way the appearance of a man accustomed to the amenities of the 
best society. 

He was courteous, intelligent, and prepossessing. "He is so very 
nice," Lady Saunters admitted afterward, " that I felt quite sure that it 






^\Kv. 















^. c , if 

"ft / 



*il:. 




ENGLISH INSULTED IN CONSTx\NTINOPLE. 



FIRST IMPRESSIOAS OF TURKEY. I^n 

would be improper for )'oli to travel with him, until he told me that he 
was goingr out with his wife." 

Mr. Humphrey offered to show them over Robert College, — an 
invitation which was gladly accepted ; and Sallie enjoyed the surprise 
of her brother on meeting the missionary, and finding him so different 
from what he had imagined. 

She was herself surprised at the extent of the college, the beauty 
of the buildings, and its valuable collections. 

Mr. Humphrey gave them an interesting account of the origin of 
the college. "In 1850, when Mr. Hamlin was American missionary 
here," said Mr. Humphrey, " his attention was drawn to the fact that, 
wherever a Turk embraced Christianity, his fellow-Turks instantly boy- 
cotted him, declining to give him employment, or patronage of any 
kind, so that starvation for himself and family stared him in the face. 
Mr. Hamlin attempted to give employment to these cases, by inventing 
trades for them, but soon found that there were so many of them that 
some large business must be maintained to be at all adequate to the 
demand. He puzzled his brain for some time to light upon something 
which could not be put down by the Turkish authorities, and, after a 
good deal of research, discovered that one of the former Sultans, who 
desired to attract emigration to Constantinople, had issued a firman 
permitting every foreign colony in the city to maintain its own bakery. 
Now, there was at this time quite a colony of English residents in the 
city, and no English bakery, while Turkish bread was very poor. Mr. 
Hamlin called upon the English banker, and explained his project of 
establishing a steam-bakery. The banker considered the idea a good 
one, and advanced a sufficient sum for the plant. Mr. Hamlin went 
right to work, ordered his machinery, and proceeded to experiment in 
bread-making. He taught his men how to carry on the business, 
engaged customers for them among the foreign residents, and soon 
had them doing a paying business. 

"Then the Crimean War broke out. The price of flour rose enor- 



I^o THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



mously ; many of his customers left the city, and a famine broke out 
among the poor. Mr. Hamhn, in the absence of regular business, 
turned his bakery into a charitable institution. He had six thousand 
pounds of coarse Graham flour, not up to the standard of what they 
had been in the habit of using, but sweet and wholesome, and this he 
made up into bread, and, with the help of a committee of foreign 
residents, he distributed among the poor. Then the English army 
began to arrive, and Lord Raglan engaged Mr. Hamlin to furnish it 
with bread, a commission which amounted to five thousand loaves a 
day. When the British army withdrew, , it was deemed advisable to 
close the bread business, and Mr. Hamlin turned over the entire 
profits, twenty-five thousand dollars, to the American Board, to be used 
as a church and schoolhouse building fund." 

" And that was the way the money was obtained for .the founding 
of Robert Colleofe ? " Sallie asked. 

" Not exactly ; but the college owes its existence to Mr. Hamlin's 
bakery in another way. In 1856, Mr. Robert, a wealthy American, was 
sailing up the Bosphorus, when a boat laden with bread, bound for the 
English hospital, passed him. The delicious odor struck him, and he 
asked where such o-ood bread was made. On learninof that it was at 
the American Mission, he was indignant. ' And this is the way our 
missionaries fulfil their trust, and go about their business of saving 
men's souls ! ' he exclaimed. He called upon Mr. Hamlin, intending 
to investigate the matter, and to denounce him to the Board. Mr. 
Hamlin explained everything to him, and, instead of denouncing, he 
praised. More than this, he became deeply interested in the mission, 
and gave more than two hundred thousand dollars to the establishing 
of this college." ' 

Sallie was greatly interested in all that she heard and saw. She 
was introduced to some Bulgarian students, gentlemanly fellows, wear- 

' This account of the origin of Robert College is drawn from " Stories from a Missionary's Note- 
Book," by Ex-President Cyrus Hamlin, published in The Golden Rule. 



)Ut I 



FIRST IMPRESSIOA'S OF TURKEY. 



141 



ing the European costume, and conversing- fluently in French and 
English, and she thought that they compared well with the Harvard 
and Yale men of her acquaintance. She conversed with one of them 
on the condition of political affairs in Bulgaria. " We all long for 
independence," he said, "and the league called 'Young Bulgaria' is 
looking anxiously for some opportunity to 
accomplish this end ; but I see no possible 
chance for us, and we will probably be 
severely punished by the Turkish Govern- 
ment for this feeble desire. A young man 
of my acquaintance published a volume 
of Bulgarian poems, and, because he in- 
cluded in it a few old national ballads, he 
w^as thrown into prison. Some of the 
foreign legations made a little talk about 
it, and, the matter coming to the Sultan's 
ears, the poet was promptly beheaded, in 
order to put an end to the agitation." 

As Lord and Lady Saunters had planned 
to remain in Constantinople for a few days, 
Mr. Humphrey kindly offered to show them 
about the city. Mr. Norcross had not ap- 
peared, and the party were becoming very 

anxious for his safety, — Lord Saunters even feared that he might 
have been murdered. A visit to the bank on the following day placed 
an entirely different construction on his disappearance. Lord Saunters's 
check, filled out, not for twelve hundred, but for four thousand pounds, 
had been presented and cashed by a European, whose description Lord 
Saunters immediately recognized as that of his secretary. The evi- 
dence was overwhelming. Lord Saunters had been tricked b)' Mr. 
Norcross, who had now absconded with the money. Under the exist- 
ing confusion in Constantinople, there was no way ot tracking the 




STUDENT OF ROBERT COLLEGE. 



142 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

scoundrel, and his Lordship bore the loss with more equanimity than 
might have been expected. 

" I shall have the less to leave Algy," he said, with a sorrowful 
shake of the head. 

" And the less with which to do such deeds as Mr. Robert's," Sallie 
added, apparently not perceiving the startled look in Lord Saunters's 
face, which told that he had not thought of such a disposal of his funds. 

"That is true," he said, after a moment's pause. "What is given 
away is the only money that is put ' where thieves do not break 
through.' " 

The next day was devoted to excursions by water in a caique to 
the different environs. 

At Scutari they visited the English and Turkish cemeteries. Among 
the cypresses in the former were buried many of the English who fell 
during the Crimean War. There was a terrible daily death-rate at the 
English hospital at Scutari, until Florence Nightingale came out from 
England with her little band of devoted nurses, and took charge of its 
wards. 

Sallie listened to the story of this heroic woman, not thinking that 
she would soon be engaged in the same work. In the Turkish ceme- 
tery they saw a veiled woman rise from beside a grave, and glide away. 
The tombs of men here bore the emblem of the turban. Mr. Hum- 
phrey pointed out to Gus the tomb of the favorite horse of the Sultan 
Mahmoud. " I should like to know what he did to merit this distinc- 
tion. Perhaps he bore his master victoriously through some battle. 
Did you ever see General Sheridan's horse ? You know they have 
it stuffed at the museum at Governor's Island." 

Mr. Humphrey had seen Sheridan's horse, but he could not tell the 
story of Sultan Mahmoud's, and regretted that no Turkish Browning 
had written a ballad on its exploits. 

That afternoon, Gus, for the first time, experienced the overrated 
luxury of a Turkish bath. He could not persuade Lord Saunters to 



F/I^ST IMPRESSIOAS OF TURKEY. 



H3 



accompany him. " I shall not willingly put myself into the hands of 
these savages," he explained. " I have had enough attention given to 
my toilet by Montenegrins and Turks." 




MONUMENT IN THE BRITISH GRAVEYARD, SCUTARI. 

The description which Gus gave of his experience did not cause his 
Lordship to regret his decision. 

" First," said Gus, " I got into swimming costume, then I lay on a 
couch until, as the little shaver said, ' I was all Presbyterianism.' Then 



T44 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 




A FAMILY CORNER TURKISH CEMETERY, SCUTARI. 



the Jack of Spades, 
who bosses the con- 
cern, took me into 
an oven, laid me 
down on a hot 
stone, and kneaded 
and paddled and 
thumped and mas- 
saged and punched 
and pummelled 
and squeezed and 
wrenched and tor- 
tured me generally. 
Then he dashed on 
a lot of scalding 
water, and lathered 
and skinned me ; 
finally he rigged me 
out in a toga made 
of Turkish towel- 
ling, and gave me 
a hookah to smoke. 
I think he was mad 
because I wouldn't 
touch the dirty thing 
to my lips ; but I 
managed to gulp 
down the little cup 
of black coffee he 
brought, and that 
seemed to appease 
him some. I tell 



FIRST LlfPRESSIONS OF TURKEY. 



H5 




ABD-UL-AZIZ. 



you that fellow earned his money : there is more exercise in it than 

in a game of football. Indeed, I 
couldn't help thinking, all the time, 
that it -ivas a block game, and that 
our side was getting awfully beaten. 
I had such a good chance to tackle 
that old Blackamoor in the scrim- 
mage, it was all I could do to keep 
from kicking the sponge right out 
of his hand, clear over the goal." 

Lord and Lady Saunters re- 
mained with them but one day 
more. The da)' was devoted to a 
more satisfactory view of the Turk- 
ish city, under the guidance of Mr. 

Humphrey, than their first had been. They visited the palace of the 

Seraglio, and happened to catch a 

glimpse of the Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz, 

as he rode through the city. " His 

face is more weak than wicked," 

Sallie said; "I fancy he is afraid 

of his own subjects." The furtive 

glance and pale face were distinctly 

remembered as she read, not a year 

later, that he had been deposed in 

favor of Mourad V., and had com- 
mitted suicide. 

Lord Saunters and Gus, by pac- 
ing a fee, were allowed to see the 

interior of the beautiful Mosque of 

Suleiman the Mao-nificent, with its 

six minarets, and that of St. Sophia. 




MOUKAD V 



The latter is built in the form of 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 




TOMB OF SULTAN MAHMOUD's FAVORITE HORSE. 



a Greek cross, and 
Gus recalled the 
fact that it was 
built by the great 
Emperor Constan- 
tine as a Christian 
church. They could 
see the figures of 
the Cherubim dimly 
through the white- 
wash with which 
they had been cov- 
ered. Mr. Hum- 
phrey pointed out 
some pillars said to 
have come from the 
Temple of Diana at 
Ephesus. 

"The Russians," 
said he, " and other 
members of the 
Greek Church, look 
longingly toward 
this church, and 
dream of the time 
when it will be re- 
stored to the Chris- 
tian faith." 

And this again 
came back to Gus, 
as later he heard 
the marching Cos- 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF TURKEY. 



149 



sacks singing songs, whose spirit Edna Dean Proctor has ren- 
dered in her 

"EMPIRE OF THE EAST. 

" Hail to the glorious morning, 

When the cross again shall shine 
On the summit of St. Sophia, 
O city of Constantine ! 

In the sky of the South, at midnight. 

We have seen God's flaming sign, 
And we know he will drive the Moslem horde 

As chaff from his sacred shrine. 
Silent will be the Muezzin, 

As the sun on Asia sets : 
Folded the crescent banner, 

Crumbled the minarets. 

Then, in the grand cathedral 

Victorious chants we'll raise, 
While the saints look down with loving eyes, 

And the gems of the altar blaze. 
Hail to the day when the eagles 

And the cross shall gain their own. 
As the patriarch welcomes our Lord, the Czar, 

To the Caesar's ancient throne." 

Sallie and Gus were sorry to bid farewell to their English friends. 
In spite of their differences of taste and inherited habits of thought 
and life, the companionship had been very pleasant for all, and a firm 
friendship had been formed, while the electric sparks of influence which 
go out from every life like Sallie's had quickened and kindled Lord and 
Lady Saunters to new considerations of their responsibility. 

On board the steamer which was to carry them homeward a Turkish 
vessel from the eastern shore of the Black Sea landed its passengers 
— a regiment of irregular Circassian troops, the terrible Bashi-Bazouks. 
soon to be turned loose upon Bulgaria, to punish its unformulated 
desire for independence. The pay of this corps consisted in permis- 
sion to pillage the unhappy country, and they shordy after accomplishet! 



J CO THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

this task with a brutality of wholesale slaughter unsurpassed in the 
annals of the world's history. 

But before this was done Sallie reached Samokov safely, and was 
warmly greeted by Alice. She found her friend teaching in the girls' 
school. Marika was here, looking lovelier than ever, and Katarinka 
was one of the brightest scholars. There were scattered acts of atrocity 
on the part of the Turks, — twenty Bulgarians were murdered before 
Christmas, — but there was no general outbreak of war ; and at Samo- 
kov all was so peaceful that it was difficult to believe that the country 
was on the eve of a g-reat convulsion. Alice was an enthusiast in her 
work, and could not be persuaded to leave it. "I will go with you 
next summer for a little tour duringf the vacation," she had said to 
Sallie, " if you will spend the winter with me here." 

The idea pleased Sallie. Mr. Osborne was in Samokov, and had 
offered to take Gus with him on a tour which he proposed to make 
through Bulgaria and Servia. Sallie was glad to have her brother 
under the influence of such a man ; and, as she noted the picturesque 
types about her, she felt sure that she could spend a season of art- 
study very profitably in the companionship of her dearest friend Alice. 
The cost of living was less here than in any European city, and she 
settled herself very contentedly at the mission. But she had not 
calculated on the contagion of Alice's zeal. Sallie very soon discovered 
that her friend was overworked, and offered to take her class in 
sewing for her. She became so interested in it that she declined to 
give it up, and soon assumed another in penmanship, and the sketching 
became an entirely secondary affair. She caught at the language easily, 
and soon learned to sing the hymns, and talk brokenly with her pupils. 
Suddenly, in the midst of this pleasant occupation, there came to her a 
letter which made her heart leap with a wild, sweet exultation ; for with 
it there was a little packet, from which rolled no gems of price, but 
Captain MUller's epaulets. He had given up the army for her sake. 



I 



ST. PETERSBURG. 



151 



CHAPTER XII. 



ST. PETERSBURG. 



DESPITE the annoyances which were to follow, Mellcent's first 
experiences in St. Petersburg were very pleasant. All was so 
odd and delightful, so different 
from any other European city 
w^hich she had seen. 

The railway station was sur- 
rounded by droskies, and their 
drivers, who knew no English, 
but were adepts in the universal 
sign-language. Melicent had 
learned a few Russian phrases, 
and advanced boldly, holding up 
before the group which immedi- 
ately formed about her a coin, 
and naming the hotel to which 
she wished to be taken. The 
brotherhood of drivers received 
this proposition with scorn. Meli- 
cent turned away from them with 
a magnificent air, and, drawing 
her mother's arm within her own, walked away. A driver followed her, 
screaming '' Pojalooyte'.' which Melicent took for surrender ; and the 
two ladies mounted into the queer litde gig, and were driven rapidly 
through the Nevsky Prospect, the principal avenue of the city. 

The wideness of the streets reminded the two ladies of Washington. 




DROSKY-DRIVEK. 



152 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



the city of magnificent distances. All was on a grand scale, spacious 
and grandiose ; here the citizens had evidently room to breathe ; private 
houses had the appearance of palaces ; the shops were alive with 
elegant ladies, making purchases : and generals and noblemen dashed 
through the street on horseback or in sumptuous carriages. They 




ST. ISAAC S CHURCH. 

passed the Admiralty, and turned into St. Isaac's Square, named from 
the magnificent cathedral which fronts it. Melicent succeeded in 
stopping her driver, and in entering the building. She found it 
extremely simple, but impressive from its vastness. Each of its four 
porches is supported by immense granite pillars, sixty feet in height. 
The interior carried out the same feeling of immensity. Looking up 



|||j|||!{H|T|ii! 




ST. PETERSBURG. 



155 



into the oreat dome, Melicent's brain reeled with wonder at the power 
of man to accompHsh such a result. It was a relief to turn from it to 
the jewelled shrine of Prince Demidoff, the owner of the malachite 




■s^'^^-if.' ^M^i:^^ —;x^^^^ ^ 



STATUE OF PETER THE GREAT. 

mines of Siberia. Melicent was fond of malachite, with its varyin^cr 
shades of exquisite i^reen. and she examined with interest the beautiful 
specimens of which the dome of this shrine is formed. 



156 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



" I wonder where we can find articles made from malachite for 
sale," she said to her mother. 

" I fancy we had better wait until we have been here some time," 
Mrs. Davenport replied. " I have always found it a good plan not to 
purchase souvenirs until just before one is about to leave. You learn 
the current prices, and have an opportunity to compare and choose. 
Very likely, too. Captain Miiller's sister can give us points." 

In the centre of the great square in front of the cathedral stands 
the statue of Peter the Great. They had an excellent view of it from 
every side. St. Petersburg is an extremely flat city, with no rocks in 
its vicinity, consequently great masses of stone are at a premium ; and 
the Emperor Nicholas selected for the pedestal of this statue a huge 
bowlder, and caused it to be transported to the city from a great 
distance. The statue, a very spirited one by Falconet, has a fine, 
realistic effect. Peter appears to be riding up an eminence, and is just 
in the act of reigning in his horse on the brink of a precipice. From 
the Square of St. Isaac's the travellers proceeded to their hotel on the 
English Quay, facing the Neva, and not far from the Nicholas Bridge. 
This is the fashionable afternoon promenade of St. Petersburg ; and 
from their windows Mrs. Davenport and her daughter saw some of the 
highest nobility of the country, and among them the imperial family. 
Melicent was struck with the preponderance of military uniforms. "All 
of the gentlemen seem to be in the army," she remarked to her mother, 
" and yet Russia is not at war with any other nation. I wonder when 
these gayly-dressed fellows will be called on to lay down their lives for 
the Czar. Somewhere, very soon, I am sure. I am so impatient to 
begin my medical studies in order to be ready to follow the Red Cross 
on its next campaign, wherever it may be ! " 

Mrs. Davenport looked up wearily. " Don't begin immediately, 
dear," she said ; " take a little time for sight-seeing first. I am sure we 
shall find St. Petersburg very interesting, and you will have no time to 
do it justice after you have once plunged into your studies." 



ST. PETERSBURG. 

Melicent shrugged her shoulders impatiently 
to devote an hour every afternoon, perhaps 
longer, to driving with you ; but I do want 
to begin my studies at once." 

" Then, dear, the first step will be to 
obtain a private driver, whom we can de- 
pend upon, to take you regularly to the 
medical school, and to drive us about the 
city. We must not be left at the mercy of 
these isvostchiks, or drosky-men, though I 
think you managed very nicely this morn- 
ing. What a very shocking language it is ! 
I can't understand a word of it, but I am 
confident that it is much more profane than 
other languages." 

Melicent laughed merrily. " I remember 
seeing somewhere," she said, " a story of a 



159 
" I promise, mamma, 




THE COUNTESS MELINOFF. 



foreio-ner who heard the Boots at his hotel 
repeating emphatically the word ' Tcheti- 
rnadtzat' and immediately jumped at the 
conclusion that such a disagreeable word 
must be an oath, and, accordingl)', when 
angry with his driver, shouted at him in a 
very vigorous manner, ' Tchetiruadtzat., 
tchetir-r-r-r-nadtzatr but, as the word 
really meant only fourteen, the driver sim- 
ply drove about from street to street, stop- 
ping inquiringly at the number fourteen." 

The Davenports' first call was upon the 
Countess Melinoff, the sister of Captain 
Muller. She had already heard much of 
her brother's American friends, and received them most kindly. Count 




MRS. DAVENPORT. 



i6o 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



Feodor Melinoff, her husband, was an intelHgent and courteous gentle- | 
man, whose duties kept him near the Czar. Their apartments were in 
a charming palace, and the ladies were immediately introduced into a 
delightful circle of Russian society. Melicent found that listening to 
the gay and witty conversation of the ladies who hovered in the after- ■] 




THE WINTER PALACE. 



noon about the countess's samovar (tea-urn) was a very pleasant and 
effective way of studying the Russian language, and even Mrs. Daven- 
port began to pick up and use the words which had seemed to her so 
unpronounceable. 

They met many distinguished people, and Melicent was deservedly 
popular, as every true American girl is sure to be. One afternoon they 
witnessed a military review from the carriage of the countess, and, 



ST. PETERSBURG. 



i6i 



among the officers manoeuvring the troops, the Grand Duke, several 
princes, and the two Generals Skobeleff, father and son, were pointed 
out, with General Gourko, and others, destined to become more famous 
in the approaching 
war. After the re- 
view, a young man 
rode up to the car- 
riage, and was pre- 
sented by the coun- 
tess as Prince Tserte- 
leff. He had visited 
England, and spoke 
Enelish well. He 
impressed the ladies 
as a man of modesty 
and ability, and Mrs. 
Davenport asked if 
he were a soldier. 
" He is attached to 
the diplomatic ser- 
vice," replied Count 
Melinoff; "but he is 
a bright youngster : 
we shall hear of him 
aofain." 

A few days later 
Melicent had the 
honor of being presented to the Czar. She did not lose her self- 
possession, but told him, with simple dignity, how high a privilege she 
considered it to meet the man who had inaugurated his career by 
freeing fourteen million serfs. 

" Do you know," he replied as simply, " who it is who is really 
responsible for that ? " 




THE GRAND DUKE NICHOLAS. 



l62 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



" No, sire." 

"It is our novelist Turgenef. I should never have thought of it 
but for him. I am fond of hunting, and, when his * Memoirs of a 
Sportsman ' was published, I said to myself, ' Here is something which 
will interest me.' And it did; but not in the way I had expected. The 
former serfs of Russia owe their liberation to that book." 

Melicent could not consent to spend more than a very small portion 
of her time in society, but began her medical 
studies at once. Their coachman, Dimitri Dimi- 
trievitch, whom they had obtained through their 
landlord, spoke English, and proved to be a jewel 
of intelligence ; but, when so reported to the 
count, he exclaimed, "An intelligent coachman! 
Impossible ! the only men of intelligence of that 
class are in the service of the detective police." 

Count Melinoff had spoken at random, and 

Mrs. Davenport was far from taking alarm ; but 

Dimitri Dimitrievitch was, in fact, a detective. 

The Davenports had been followed to their hotel 

by the little man who had dogged their steps from 

^ Vienna. He had explained to the landlord that 

^s'it was necessary that his guests should be placed 

under police surveillance, and when Mrs. Daven- 

DiMiTRi DiMiTRiE- port desircd the landlord to secure a coachman, 

her request was sent to the police headquarters, 

and Dimitri, one of the best detectives on the force, was installed 

in his position. 

Melicent's desire to study medicine strengthened the suspicions. 
Several of the medical students were suspects, and Dimitri watched 
carefully to see If Melicent cultivated the acquaintance of these persons. 
He was so obliging and competent that Mrs. Davenport employed him 
in many ways, and Intrusted him more and more with her affairs. He. 




ST. PETERSBURG. 



165 



knew all the acquaintances of both the ladies ; he read every letter 
which they received or wrote ; he did all their errands, and noted every 
circumstance, however sligrht. That the Count and Countess Melinoff 
should be their most intimate friends surprised him, for the count was 
an ardent supporter of the Czar, and a representative of the old aris- 
tocracy. When he took the ladies to the Countess Melinoff's first 
reception, and noted the liveries of the servants on the long line of 
carriages, and the crests upon the panels of the carriages, it seemed to 
him that his employers moved in a very respectable rank of society, 
and he reflected that, if they were *' politicals," they must be very 
important and dangerous ones. 

They were fond of visiting the different palaces, and remained, as 
it seemed to him, a long time in the picture-gallery of the Hermitage, 
and in the Imperial Library. Could it be that they were lying in wait 
to assassinate the Czar? If surely was not possible that they really 
cared anything for those smoky old pictures and musty books. Perhaps 
there was a plot to steal the crown jewels. 

With all his vigilance, however, he could not discover anything impli- 
cating the ladies, until the latter part of the winter, when a mysterious 
letter arrived from Captain Mliller, in which he referred to a plot which 
they had entered into with him, and inquired as to its success. The 
plot, of course, was Melicent's promise to induce Sallie to join her in 
St. Petersburg ; but, as the Melinoffs were intending to remove for the 
early spring to their villa at Yalta, in the Crimea, Captain Mliller sug- 
gested that they should all meet at the pretty residence of the countess, 
and begged Melicent to co-operate with him in urging Sallie and Alice 
to accept his sister's invitation. If the captain had only spoken ot all 
this in plain language, Dimitri would have thought nothing of it; but 
the word plot revived his flagging suspicions. 

It so chanced that a letter from Sallie fanned the flame : she spoke 
of the political situation in Bulgaria, and begged that Melicent would 
let her know whether there was any hope that the Czar would take up 



i66 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



the matter, and declare war against the Turks. It chanced that Dimitri 
was cleaning the windows of Mrs. Davenport's boudoir when this letter 
arrived, and did not have his usual opportunity of a first perusal ; but 
when Melicent locked it away in her desk, one leaf fluttered to the 
floor, and this he secured. The closing lines on the page ran as 
follows : — 

" You know that I have always disapproved of bloodshed, but some- 
times it seems the only check to tyranny, and so if the Czar " — 

Could anything 
be more conclusive ? 
Melicent was cer- 
tainly engaged in a 
plot to assassinate the 
Emperor. 

He now watched 
Melicent more care- 
fully than ever, and 
searched her trunks 
for dynamite bombs, 
and other infernal ma- 
chines. One day, he 
saw her speaking to a woman in the park. The circumstance was 
natural enough, for the woman was a fellow-student; but Dimitri started 
with exultation : it was the first time that either of the ladies had held 
any communication with a " suspect." He strolled behind them in an 
agony of curiosity. If he could only hear one word of their conversa- 
tion ! and presently he did hear it. The woman's manner was excited : 
she gesticulated violently, but spoke in so low a tone that Dimitri, 
losing his caution, approached nearer, and heard her distinctly utter the 
name, " Natocha Melniketzky ! " It was evident to Dimitri that this 
woman had recognized Melicent as the Nihilist that she had all along 
been suspected to be. This sudden discovery quite took away his 




A SUSPICIOUS INTERVIEW. 



ST. PETERSBURG. 1 67 

senses, and deprived him of the power of immediate action, and, when 
MeHcent turned and recognized him, as she immediately did, he could 
only stammer that the carriage was waiting for her at the corner. 
Melicent offered to take her friend home, but she declined the kind- 
ness, and stole swiftly away. 

Dimitri drove his mistress home, cursing his own stupidity in not at 
once throwing off his disguise, and arresting both women. This 
stranger who had temporarily escaped him would be a most valuable 
witness against Melicent, and now he must wait until he could secure 
her. 

So all winter Dimitri wove his web, like a malicious spider, and the 
unsuspecting Melicent fluttered cheerfully about within the toils. 



1 58 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



BALKAN ROSES. 



THE winter was over, and spring, which comes early to the Turkish 
principaHties, had covered the land with beauty. 
The letter containing Captain Mijller's declaration had been followed 
by many others. It had traversed the Atlantic to Sallie's parents, and 
had returned with the news that Mr. and Mrs. Benton would join their 
daughter in Russia in the summer. Sallie wished them to pass their 
judgment upon her friend before an engagement was entered upon ; for 
to her an engagement was a very sacred thing, and not to be rushed 
into until after a season of probation and thorough acquaintance, where- 
in both parties might become very sure that their union was wise. 
Captain MiAller — captain no longer, but, through her influence, simple 
Herr Mliller — had consented to this, begging that she would visit 
during the coming summer with his sister, the Countess Melinoff. 
The countess had sent Sallie and Alice most sisterly invitations, which 
had been accepted, though the time of their going was continually put 
off by Alice, who could hardly be induced to take any vacation. Sallie, 
too, was growing more and more interested in her work. She could 
hardly believe the stories of cruelty and oppression which were told 
her, they seemed so at variance with the smiling aspect of all nature. 
She had wished to make a picture of a Bulgarian shepherd, guarding 
his flock in the fields, — the man was so picturesque in his black astra- 
chan cap and his great-coat of sheepskin, with the wool turned inside, 
and the outer surface ornamented with an applique pattern in red cloth. 
The man had advised her not to paint in the fields, '' The Turks come 



BALKAN ROSES. 



169 



sometimes," he said. " I will pose for you in the courtyard of the 
school to-morrow." 

" And you will bring some sheep, and hold one of the lambs in 
your arms, as you do now ? " she asked. The attitude, as well as the 
costume, had struck her, it seemed so appropriate to the man's name, 
which was Kristo. 

But the shepherd did not come in the morning, and Marika told 
her that his body had been found beside the well, where he had been 
watering his flock. The sign of the cross, cut deeply in the forehead 
of the murdered man by two sword-gashes, told that the crime had 
been committed by some one who hated him because he was a Christian. 
Kristo's sons suspected a Turkish neighbor, who had immediately seized 
upon the sheep ; but, when they made complaint to the Cadi, the man 
asserted not only that the sheep were his own, but that he had seen 
the two boys commit the murder. They were, accordingly, thrown into 
prison. That they were not at once beheaded proved that the Cadi 
did not give entire credence to the testimony. 

While the missionaries sympathized with the oppressed people, they 
realized that they held the little foothold which they had gained in the 
country through the sufferance of the Turkish Government, and that 
they were bound to take no part in politics. But Sallie felt that she 
was not so bound ; and the more she saw of Turkish misrule, the more 
indio^nant she became. 

Her first acquaintances, Katarinka and Marika, were still her 
favorites. The family had settled near the school, and the father was 
attempting to carry on his trade as a weaver of rugs. Ever)- operation 
in their manufacture, from the raisincr of the qroats for the hair, was 
performed by some member of the family. The youngest child watched 
the little flock, the girls spun the yarn, the mother, a second Lydia, 
prepared the dye-stuffs, and the father wove. The colors were very 
beautiful, and the recipes used in the dyeing were a secret, handed 
down in the family, perhaps from the ver)- L\clia of Th)atira whose 



lyo THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

purple dye-stuff was so beautiful that Paul especially refers to it. Sallie 
had been struck by the rich colors when she first bought the yarn from 
the girls at Ragusa, and was still more delighted by the tasteful combi- 
nations shown in the finished rugs. a 

" You ought to make a good living," she said to the weaver; " foifl! 
these prayer-rugs are very popular in Constantinople, and sell in the 
bazaars for a high price." 

" I should get along very well," he explained, " if it were not for 
the taxes. Look at my goats. They are first taxed as live-stock ; then 
their milk is taxed ; their hair is taxed when it is clipped, and, again, if 
I sell it as yarn, the dye-stuffs are taxed, and the finished rugs must 
pay one-fifth to the Crown, one-fifth to the Pasha governing this pasha- 
lik, and another fifth as a special military tax. Then, last spring, I 
happened to make a very handsome rug, and the Pasha took a fancy 
to it, and bought it at his own valuation. Why did I not object? 
There was the bastinado. Everything that we buy is taxed — our food, 
clothing, the house we live in, every fruit-tree in the garden. It is a 
wonder how we live." 

Sallie wondered, too. "Why do you remain in such a country?" 
.she asked. 

The weaver shrugged his shoulders patiently. " Where can we do 
better? And the school, the school makes up for much. I would 
suffer anything for my daughters. Trajan Evanova is a worthy man, 
and I hope soon to see Marika happily settled in life." 

Easter was celebrated in Samokov with less rejoicing than is usual 
In the Greek Church. The steel bars, which take the place of bells, 
were beaten in the belfries, and the people greeted one another with 
the exclamation, " Christ us vuskrjisny !" ("Christ is risen!") and 
the reply, " Vuskrusny naeesteena /" ( " He is risen indeed ! " ) But 
their Turkish neighbors scowled in a way which boded no good, and 
the examination and exhibition of the mission-school were hastened by 
rumors of coming trouble. These exercises were very creditable to 




2 

O 

to 

CO 

bi 

CJ 

O 

a: 

o 
< 



BALKAN ROSES. 



173 



Two of the 



the school, many Turkish officials of high rank attending, some out of 
curiosity possibly, but others from genuine interest. One pasha, of 
noble bearing, who had long shown himself friendly to the missionaries, 
advised them privately that the scholars should be sent to their homes, 
and that the teachers should leave the country at once. " It will not 
be a safe place for ladies much longer," was his warning, 
lady teachers took the train for 
Constantinople. 

Trajan Evanova had insisted 
that the family of his betrothed 
should spend the summer with 
his parents at Batak, as this Bal- \^^^ 
kan village was so far removed ^ '' 
from the larger towns and ordi- 
nary routes of travel that it seemed 
to offer a safe harbor from any 
tidal wave of war which might 
sweep across the country. 

Sallie and Alice were besought 
to visit with them, and to remain 
until after Marika's wedding, and 
decided to do so, as the wedding 
was to occur in a few days. Gus, 

after his tour with James Osborne, had settled at the boys' school 
at Philippopolis, where he was reading the "Odyssey" with a native 
Greek. His school had not closed, and Sallie thought it a good 
plan to fill in the interval, while awaiting him, by making this visit. 
They made the trip in the jolting wagons of the country ; but the 
slopes of the Balkans were beautiful with wild-flowers, and much 
of the way they were climbing the mountain-paths in advance of 
their rude vehicles. The wild rose grew in abundance, and they 
were told that many of the mountain-girls earned their livelihood by 




THE ROSE HARVEST. 



lyA THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

collecting' the roses, and distilling the precious attar, for which Turkey 
is so justly famed. The girls themselves were true roses, with soft, 
petal-like cheeks and deep, gentle eyes. As they fluttered by, Sallie 
distinctly perceived the scent of the roses. Batak itself was situated 
on a spur of the mountains, along a dashing stream, which turned the 
wheels of many saw-mills. A church, with a little graveyard, stood in 
the centre of the village, and a large schoolhouse was well filled with 
pupils. The houses were very simple. Trajan's parents had secured 
one for the family of the weaver. It was built of basket-work, plastered 
within and without with mud, and whitewashed. The roof was of 
curved red tiles, making a very picturesque appearance. The principal 
apartment served partly as kitchen and partly as stable, and the flicker- 
ing firelight fell on the sporting children, while the cows munched their 
fodder in the shadowy corners. Sallie, tired as she was from her 
journey, took out her sketching material. " It is like the stable at 
Bethlehem," she said to Alice. 

The room assigned to the young Americans was newly whitewashed 
and clean. Their couch was formed of rugs, spread on fragrant hay. 
They spent several days in this interesting village, and during their 
stay Marika's marriage was celebrated, Trajan urging that he was about 
to join the Bulgarian legion, and that he might be killed. " If so," he 
said, " I wish to leave Marika my goldsmith-shop and other property." 

The wedding ceremonies were very curious. It was performed by 
the " pope," as the village priest was called, and, after the marriage in 
the church, there was a dance on the village green, to the music of a 
bagpipe. Trajan's presents were carried to his bride by a procession 
of friends. The wedding feast consisted of many courses, served on a 
long table, raised only six inches from the floor, on which the guests 
sat, for there were no chairs. The pottery was classical in shape, and 
brighdy decorated, and the coffee was served from a brazen coffee-pot 
of beautiful shape. 

It was with sincere regret that Sallie and Alice parted, a few days 



BALKAN ROSES. 



lyy 



later, from their Bulgarian friends. The last picture which Sallie had 
of them showed the pretty bride standing in the doorway, with tears in 
her eyes, as she threw kisses toward them. Trajan left with the 
American girls, intending to conduct them to the nearest railway station, 
and then to rejoin his regiment. They found, however, that the trains 
had been stopped, and 
the rails torn up, for the 
Sultan had been using 
the road to send troops 
into the country. Trajan 
looked very grave : this 
measure could only de- 
lay for a short time the 
arrival of the Turkish 
forces. The outbreak 
had beo^un, and this 
action of the Bulearians 
would furnish the Turks 
with an excuse for cruel 
reprisals. 

They had continued 
their journey toward 
Philippopolis but a few 
miles, when they were 
met by fleeing peasants 
and townspeople. 

" You are mad to go in that direction," one of them said, 
Turks are momentarily expected." 

Trajan turned the horses. " We must drive to Samokov," he 
explained. 

" But my brother ! " Sallie exclaimed. 

More questioning of the refugees elicited the fact that he had left 




PRINCESS NATHALIE. 



The 



178 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



Phlllppopolis the day before with a gentleman whom Sallie surmised tol 
be James Osborne. She decided at once that he had gone to Samokov 
to find her, and toward Samokov they immediately hastened. Pausing 
at Tatar Bazardjik to change horses, they were met at the inn-door by 

Gus and Mr. Humphrey. 
Gus reported that James 
Osborne, having accom- 
panied him thus far, had 
placed him in Mr. Hum- 
phrey's care, and had 
himself gone to Batak in 
much anxiety as to the 
safety of the two girls, as 
he had heard that Achmet 
Azha was marching in 
that direction with his 
terrible Bashi-Bazouks. 
Trajan Evan ova, on re- 
ceiving this information, 
rushed away without bid- 
ding them farewell, lash- 
ing his jaded horse into 
a furious gallop. 

'• You are only just 
in time to escape from the country by the north," said Mr. Hum- 
phrey. " Even now you may be cut off. You cannot leave by the 
west or northwest, for Servia and Montenegro have at last united 
in declaring war against Turkey, Prince Milan and Prince Nicholas 
having come to a definite agreement. No passenger steamers ply 
up and down the Danube at present, for the river is blockaded and 
fortified by both Servians and Turks. Nor can you leave the country 
by way of Constantinople, for the Turkish troops are on the march 




PRINCE MILAN IV. OF SERVIA. 



BALKAN ROSES. 



1/9 




SERVIAN. 



from that direction for Servia, and are committing frightful ravages on 

the way. They are desolating the country about Philippopolis. I hear 

of whole villages burned, their inhabitants 

indiscriminately massacred. Achmet Azha, 

with his Bashi-Bazouks, is dashing in every 

direction, pillaging and slaughtering in the 

district south and southeast of us. They 

may be at Samokov in a day or two. Your 

only possible way of escape is by the north- 
east. I will escort you to our friends at 

Eski Zagra, They will help you to cross 

the Balkans by the Shipka Pass. You will 

probably find the country north of the 

Balkans quiet, and your next step will 

be to cross the Danube at Rustchuk, 

and proceed to Bucharest, from which 

point you have rail communication with every part of Europe." 
There was no time for hesitation ; and Alice, Sallie, and Gus, led by 

the brave missionary, whose horseback tours 
as a colporteur had frequently taken him 
over this part of the country, were soon 
Heeing through the panic-stricken district 
to Eski Zagra, at the foot of Shipka Pass, 
the gate through the northern range of the 
Balkans. The wave of war had not actually 
reached this beautiful region, and the in- 
x/^'^ habitants were continuing their peaceful 
yy, avocations. 

They were hospitably entertained by the 
missionaries, and urged to rest for a few 
days, and obtain necessary passports, and 

make other preparations for their journey. Sallie wrote to her parents 




I go THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



■ 



from this point, announcing her intention of meeting them at Moscow. 
It was hard, however, to induce Ahce to continue the journey. " I 
am sure that 1 can be of use here," she said, " and I would much rather 
remain." 

But on the third day James Osborne arrived. He had ridden hard, 
and, although nearly exhausted, was in a fever of impatience for them 
to leave the country with him. 

" You do not know what I have seen," he repeated continually. 
" You must not wait for papers, or for anything else, but must come 
with me at once. I can get you through to Bucharest, I am confident, 
if we start at once ; but every hour diminishes the chance." 

On applying for a conveyance to take them across the mountains, 
they were informed that the Turks had fortified Shipka Pass, and had 
stopped all travel over the Balkans. 

"Then we are really hemmed in on all sides ! " Sallie exclaimed, in 
despair. 

" Very well," Alice replied calmly, " I have been averse all along to 
running away. You know Jesus said, ' When ye shall hear of wars and 
rumors of wars, be ye not troubled,' but ' in your patience possess ye 
your souls.' We will stay right here, and accept whatever fortune 
comes to these poor people." 

"By your leave," Sallie replied, "you do not know what you 
are talking about, and we will do nothing of the sort. In speak- 
ing of those very wars, Jesus told his followers to ' flee to the 
mountains.' " 

"Yes," added Gus, "and to do it pretty lively, too — not even to 
stop to take anything out of the house, or to pick up his overcoat, if 
he was in the field. You don't catch me loafing around to do the 
martyr business, — that's certain." 

Alice still demurred, but James Osborne said gravely, " This is no 
time or place for hesitation. I have left a country where thousands of 
men, women, and children are being butchered in cold blood, after 



BALKAN ROSES. 



I«I 



having laid down their arms. I have seen sights too horrible to tell. 
You must come, if we have to carry you away by force." 

" I wish we had remained at Batak," said Alice, with cheerful confi- 
dence, " for we can feel certain that, at least, Marika and Katarinka are 
quite safe." 

James Osborne hesitated. "I do not know whether it is kind to 
undeceive you ; but I reached Batak shortly after Achmet Azha left it. 
Isolated as the town is, it did not escape him, and he left it a charnel- 
house. The people gave up their arms, and were massacred, while 
unresisting children were burned alive in the schoolhouse, and over two 
hundred young girls were beheaded, their bodies piled in one great 
heap. I see no reason to hope that your friends were not among the 
number, for the town was completely surprised. I cannot tell you half 
the sickening story ; but the entire population of that beautiful town 
was wiped out in one dreadful massacre, of which history hardly 
contains a parallel." 

Alice turned deadly pale. " I will go," she said simply. " You are 
right : we can do nothing till this horror is overpast." 

James Osborne prosecuted his inquiries in regard to the route with 
vigor, " There must be other passes across the mountains known to 
the peasants," he said. 

Inquiry was made, and a young Bible-reader was found who had 
journeyed as a colporteur in the mountains. He knew of a disused 
pass not far from Kezanlik. It was hardly practicable for a wagon, he 
feared, but was a safe road for saddle-horses. The wagon was accord- 
ingly left behind, and the party proceeded on horseback, with a pack- 
mule for baggage. The girls had tried Turkish horses before, and 
found their gait an easy one. They take high steps, and bear their 
heads proudly, with a sort of processional march as though keej^ing 
time to music. Kezanlik — garden of roses — was embowered with 
flowers. Rumors of war had not reached it with any terrifying force, 
and all was quiet and peaceful. Their guide led them straight toward 



l82 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



the mountain wall. " Surely there is no possibility of scaling that 
perpendicular cliff," said Sallie ; but a little divergence to the right 
disclosed a gorge, with the nearly dry bed of a torrent, up which they 
mounted with perfect ease. Ferns grew beside them, trees sometimes 
arched over their heads, and in profusion on every hand grew the 
Balkan and Damascus roses. On each side the mountains rose, casting 
their cool shadows and making the ride a very pleasant one. A little 
past noon they gained the summit, and looked back for a farewell 
glance at Bulgaria. Kezanlik and Eski Zagra were in full view, their 
white walls glistening in the sun. Very peaceful and beautiful they 
looked. " It does not seem possible," said Alice, " that war can find 
them here." 

" You do not know the Turks," James Osborne replied. " Batak 
was in as fair a region as this, and it has been left a horror of blood, 
fire, and smoke." 

" How horrible ! " shuddered Sallie. " Is there no remedy?" 

" None but that of war. None unless the Russians march down 
and sweep the Turks out of the provinces and into Asia." 

Sallie was silent. Were all her dreams of arbitration and peace on 
earth a mere phantasm, — a heavenly mirage for which the world was 
not ready ? It seemed so, but it was very hard to give the theories up. 

They had descended the northern slope of the Balkans, and 
received shelter for the night in a convent of nuns of the Greek 
Church, who are allowed far more privileges than their Roman Catholic 
sisters. 

They were much interested in the dress of the two young Ameri- 
can women, and especially in the different fashion of wearing the veil. 

"Turkish women," they said, "cover their mouths carefully, and 
only expose their eyes. You, on the contrary, shroud your eyes in 
mystery, and leave your lips temptingly exposed. This would seem to 
them very immodest ; but we know that a woman's safeguard is not in 
the way in which she wears her veil, but her own behavior." 



I 



BALKAN ROSES. 



183 



From the convent they rode to the village of Gabrova, where the 
inhabitants eagerly inquired the news from the south. 

Many of the young men had crossed into Servia, to join the army 
of Prince Milan. 

" You are going north," the older men said. " Tell our story to the 
Czar ; ask him to come and help us." 

" I will tell it to the best of my ability." James Osborne promised, 
" and by God's help I 
will come again, and, 
w^hen I come, the Rus- 
sian army will be with 
me." 

Through every town 
as they passed it was the 
same thing. " Tell Al- ^^jj 
exander." — " Ask Alex- 
ander to come and help 
us." 

There were Turkish 
officials in every town 
and village, w^ho might have stopped their progress, but for the friend- 
liness of the peasants, who furnished them with fresh horses, with food 
and shelter, and with guidance. Mr. Osborne was arrested at Tirnova, 
but he was released on examination of his credentials, and they reached 
the Danube in safety. Here they were disappointed to find that all 
crossing had been prohibited, and that a Turkish gunboat lay at anchor 
to enforce this order. 

"We might attempt it at night," Sallie suggested; but James 
Osborne shook his head. They were at the village inn, and suddenly 
an unusual bustle and tramping were heard in an adjoining room. 
A waitress popped into the apartment occupied by the young 
ladies, and announced that the Pasha in command of the gun- 




1 V- 
TWO WAYS OF WEARING VEILS. 



1 84 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



boat had come on shore with some of his officers, and was dining 
at their inn. 

" He is a European," she explained, " a renegade, who has 
embraced Mohammedanism, and has been rewarded with high office." 







BUCHAREST, 



" If he is a European," SalHe suggested, " he might be incHned 
to let us pass. I think we had better ask for an interview." 

This daring proposition was accepted by the party. James Osborne's 
card was sent in, and the servant returned saying that the Pasha would 
receive not only the newspaper correspondent, but the entire party. 
They were ushered into the presence. Alice saw only a pale-faced 
man in Eastern dress, who kept his face slightly averted, and Mr. 



BALKAN ROSES. 



185 



Osborne, bowing respectfully, had begun his address, when Sallie 
suddenly exclaimed, " Mr. Norcross ! " 

It was indeed the secretary, who looked up with a strange expres- 
sion of shamefacedness and triumph. Sallie recognized only the first, 
and disregarding his proffered hand, turned haughtily from him and 
left the room. Mr. Norcross flushed deeply. " I might revenge 
myself for this insult," he said to Mr. Osborne, " by refusing your 
request, but I will try to show you that I am not such a bad fellow 
after all. Here is a written order for a boatman to take you across 
the river. Show this handkerchief as a flag, and you will not be fired 
upon." 

" I thank you for this favor," Mr. Osborne replied, " but I cannot 
help lamenting the step which you have taken." 

Mr. Norcross waved his hand airily. " Your lamentations are quite 
gratuitous," he sneered. " Your sympathies appear to be on the other 
side. If you will take up arms we may have the pleasure of another 
sort of meeting." 

" So be it," James Osborne replied gravely. 

It was hard for Sallie to bring herself to accept the courtesy which 
Mr. Norcross had offered, but she was prevailed upon to do so by 
Alice, who argued that, as she had yielded to Sallie's urgent demand 
for flight, it was now her friend's turn to give up something. 

Another day brought them to Bucharest, a city which, while it 
possesses mosques with domes and minarets, boasts also railway- 
stations, the telegraph, hotels, and European shops. As Gus remarked, 
they were at last safely in Europe ; but they were not tempted to 
delay ; and without pausing to rest from their journey, they hastily took 
the next train for Moscow. 



i86 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



\ 



CHAPTER XIV. 

MOSCOW, NIJNI-NOVGOROD, AND THE CRIMEA. 

IT was summer also in St. Petersburg, and Mrs. Davenport and her 
daughter were preparing to leave the city. Without knowing that 
Sallie and Alice were on their way to Moscov/, they had also planned, 
to spend a part of the summer in the ancient city. The Melinoffs had 
arranged to go with them ; for Sallie had at last definitely set the time 
of her visit, promising to join the countess in the autumn, at her beau- 
tiful villa at Yalta, in the Crimea. 

Fortunately for the Davenports, Dimitri Dimitrievitch brought his 
machinations to a crisis, at a time when their friends were able to 
defend them, or they might have been compelled to take a much longer 
journey, and have visited a far different portion of Russia than the 
smiling Crimea. 

Count Feodor Melinoff happened to be in the bureau of the chief 
of the Gendarmes, when Dimitri brought in the letters from Captain 
Miiller and Sallie, which were to be used as evidence that Melicent 
was a Nihilist. He listened carelessly to the detective's report. Two 
letters containing positive evidence against the suspect, Natocha 
Melniketzky. " Good ! " said the officer. " The young woman was 
arrested this morning, and is now in prison, awaiting her examination. 
I am glad to have some additional testimony, for the evidence already 
received is not at all conclusive. You are relieved from duty on that 
case, and will receive another." 

Dimitri passed into the next office for future orders. He was 
somewhat surprised to learn that Melicent was already arrested. Some 
other detective must have been upon her track, he thought. He 




ALEXANDER II., CZAR OF RUSSIA. 



MOSCOM^, NIJNI-NOVGOROD, AND THE CRIMEA. j go 

wondered if Mrs. Davenport were also in custody, but concluded that, 
all things considered, he would not return to the hotel to ascertain. 

Meantime the count had been struck by something familiar in 
Dimitri's face ; and as his eye fell on the letters lying before the officer, 
he suddenly recognized the handwriting of his brother-indaw. Captain 
Miiller. " Who did you say has just been arrested ? " he asked. 

" Natocha Melniketzky, who has been masquerading under the 
assumed name of Melicent Davenport." 

" Impossible ! " exclaimed the count. " I know the young lady 
well." 

'* Here is the evidence. Can you disprove it ? " 

Count Melinoff read the letters hastily. " Fortunately, I can," he 
replied. " One is. from my wife's brother, an ex-officer in the German 
army, whose entire career is well known. The ' plot ' to which he 
refers is perfectly clear ; in fact, it is explained farther on. It is simply 
a desire of his to have my wife invite his fiancee to visit us this 
summer. This other letter is from the young lady herself. You will 
see that she hopes the Russian Government will decide to make war 
upon Turkey. There is nothing revolutionary in that. Your ' evidence ' 
amounts to nothing." 

The officer listened carefully, and re-read the letters. " I believe 
you are right," he said. " Will you make this explanation in writing ? " 

" Certainly ; and will make myself personally responsible for the 
good behavior of this young lady, whom we are about to take with us 
to the Crimea." 

The officer promised that the matter should receive immediate 
attention, and the count returned to his home much excited. " My 
dear! " he exclaimed, as he stormed into his wife's boudoir. " have >ou 
heard the news ? Our friend. Miss Davenport, has been arrested as a 
suspect." 

" Impossible ! " exclaimed the countess. " Calm yourself, ni)- dear. 
You have been misinformed." 



IQO 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



" But I tell you that I have just come from the Bureau of the Police, 
and that Melicent is now in prison, awaiting exile." 

" Melicent has just been here," replied the countess. " She left 
the house but a moment ago. Look, there she is ! " 

The count stepped to the window, and saw the well-known figure 
of their friend, in a stylish costume, just turning the corner. She 

carried a natty umbrella, with which she 
tapped the pavement excitedly as she 
walked. " Miraculous ! " exclaimed the 
count. " How did she effect her es- 
cape : 

" She has not even been arrested, 
but she came to see if anything could 
be done for a friend of hers, Natocha 
Melniketzky, a medical student, who has 
been thrown into prison on suspicion. 
I told her that it was very dangerous 
meddling with such matters ; and you al- 
ways made it a point to keep entirely 
aloof from them." 

The count sunk into an arm-chair 

with a groan. The countess flew to his 

assistance, and he finally recovered suf- 

J)' ficiently to explain the situation. " And 

to think that I have become personally 

responsible for this unknown female ! " 

he exclaimed, " who may be the worst 

of criminals." 

The countess laughed merrily. "In that case console yourself. 

She will not be released." 

"Oh, yes, she will! I brought all my influence to bear, and she 
will probably be discharged." 




A WELL-KNOWN FIGURE. 



J/OSCOIV, NIJNI-NOVGOROD, AXD THE CRIMEA. loi 

The countess grew pensive. " I think, Feodor, that all things 
will work together for good. If these letters were the only evidence 
against this poor woman, it was only just that they should be explained, 
and that she should be cleared." 

" But what if the police insist on exchanging Natocha for Melicent, 
and in exiling our friend ? " 

"The administration would hardly do that; besides, we all leave 
St. Petersburg so soon, that the police will hardly have time to 
straighten the tangle before Melicent will be out of their reach." 

" What a pity," said the count, " that your brother did not choose 
Miss Davenport, instead of this young lady who has such peculiar 
notions about war, I fear we shall not find her so charming as he 
paints her ; and then, young ladies with ideas are very dangerous." 

The administration, when it is a question of releasing a prisoner, 
works slowly, and Natocha seemed lost from their view. Everything 
had been done for her that was possible ; and the Melinoffs and Daven- 
ports shortly afterward left the city in company. The Melinoffs were 
to be guests of the Davenports, for a time, at Moscow ; the countess 
having been persuaded to this by a secret which Melicent had confided, 
and which had also been intrusted to Sallie and Alice, by James 
Osborne. The long engagement was to find its fruition at last in a 
happy marriage. 

Mr. Ignatief, whom the newspaper correspondent had met in 
Montenegro, having decided to enlist in the Servian war, under Prince 
Milan, had offered the editorship of his paper in Moscow to James 
Osborne. It was the first time, in many years, that a quiet life had 
been possible for him. He was wearied with travel, but this alone 
would not have decided him. He saw in the position a possibility for 
his long delayed marriage with Melicent, and for beginning their home 
life. To Moscow, therefore, the little party of fugitives from Bulgaria 
had come. But as Sallie and Alice desired to surprise Melicent, James 
Osborne had not written that they were with him. 



192 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



The girls had gone at once to the hotel, where Mr. and Mrs. Benton 
were waiting to meet their children, — not without much anxiety, for 
news of the trouble in Bulgaria had been telegraphed all over the 
world, and had reached them before Sallie's letter from Eski Zagra, 
which assured them of their safety. 

Owing to the influence of the countess, the party from St. Peters- 
burg took apartments in the Kremlin. Melicent found the city even 
more interesting than St. Petersburg. The view from a distance was 
very picturesque ; the many towers, cupolas, onion-shaped domes and 
minarets, reminding one strongly of an Oriental city. The Kremlin, 
which is the aristocratic part of the city, stands upon a hill, separated 
from the lower town by a white wall, and looking, as it seemed to Meli- 
cent, like a tea-tray, crowded with a gold and silver service, flanked 
with a collection of pepper-pots and decanters with faceted glass 
stoppers. The countess had many friends residing in the Kremlin ; 
and before the arrival of James Osborne, the ladies rode from palace 
to palace, admiring, most of all, the little casket-like Granovitaya 
Palata, which contains the coronation hall of the czars. Moscow, 
though no longer the capital, is still a royal city; and each 
emperor must receive his consecration here. The old city wakens 
to new life on the occasion of each coronation. The jewelled plate 
is brought forth from its vaults, tapestries are unfolded, and velvets 
dusted, gilding touched up; visitors flock to the city; and all the 
trades-people who thrive upon the extravagance of the rich, drive a 
flourishing business. 

James Osborne arrived ; and the countess, who had wished with all 
her heart that her brother were the bridegroom-elect, submitted him to 
very close scrutiny. A fete had been arranged in the gardens of the 
Petrovsky Palace, in the suburbs, which are thrown open to the public, 
and the party drove out together. 

"You know this is the palace," the countess explained, "where 
outside the city the uncrowned emperor is made to wait three days, as 



4 



MOSCOIV, NIJNI-NOVGOROD, AND THE CRIMEA. 



19: 



though a suppHant for his rights, before he is brought to the KremHn 
for his coronation." 

" I ought to have been entertained here," Mehcent said sofdy, " for 
I have come to the city to receive the crowning blessing of my hfe, — 
a trust more sacred than that of an empire." 




THE GRANOVITAYA PALACE. 

"Will my emperor graciously alight?" said James Osborne, with a 
smile ; " your insignificant empire has prepared a little surprise, to grace 
your coronation." 

As he spoke a lady left a little kiosk, where a party sat around a 
smoking samovar, and I\Ielicent stood face to face with Sallie. It was 
a joyful meeting to all. The countess was drawn to her from the first, 



194 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



and a joyful afternoon was passed in the palace gardens. Very soon, 
however, the conversation took a serious turn, as Sallie and Alice told 
of the horror which they had left behind them ; and again the question 
was asked, " What can be done to help these poor people ? " 

"Nothing," James Osborne replied, "but to drive the Turk into 
Asia." 

"The Russian Government would like nothing better than to 
accomplish that result," said the countess; "but the Czar is only a 

figure-head after all. He can go only so 
far as popular sentiment will let him." 

" Popular sentiment is quite in that 
line," remarked the Count Feodor. " Rus- 
sia desires an outlet to the south and a 
o-ate to Asia. The mouth of the Danube 
and Batoum are prizes which the popular 
consideration would think worthy of a war. 
It would be simple enough if we had only 
to consult our own people. Unfortunately, 
the opinion of the other great powers is to 
ff be considered, and, first, that of England." 
" England shall place no obstacle in 
the way of this war," said James Os- 
borne. " Popular sentiment controls the action of England, just as 
it does that of Russia. And the English people are Christians, 
They would far rather give up their own interests than pursue them at 
the cost of cruelty to a race. You shall see, the newspaper is the 
true monarch of the world. If it is popular opinion which shapes the 
action of governments, it is the newspaper which shapes popular 
opinion. I am here in Moscow as the editor of one of its leading 
journals. I shall fill my post poorly if, before the year is out, a strong 
war sentiment has not been created. J. A. MacGahan, one of the 
most talented and earnest of our war correspondents, is revolutionizing 




MELICENT is SURPRISED. 



A/OSCOIV, iVrjA'l-AOP^GOROD, AND THE CRIMEA. 



195 



popular sentiment in England. Other writers are telling the truth in 
Austria, Germany, and France. Another year we shall be marching on 
Constantinople." 

The countess was greatly interested ; woman-like, she had already 





CZAR KOLOKOL. 



busied herself in preparations for the simple litde wedding, but she 
now entered into them with great enthusiasm. 

While these arrangements were in progress, Gus amused himself by 
visiting all the places of interest in the city, and in guiding his father 
and mother, and others of the party, to them. He was especially inter- 
ested in the history of the Vasili Blagennoy Church, built for Ivan the 
Terrible, in the grotesque, semi-barbaric Tartar style ; and so delighting 



196 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

that monarch, that it is said he ordered the eyes of the architect to be 
put out, " in order that he might never build another hke it." 

" He must have been a sweet-tempered, fatherly old fellow," mused 
Gus. " Wonder if it wouldn't be a good thing for the world if some 
of our modern architects were rewarded in the same fashion. Certainly 
if they perpetrated any such glaring and frightful combinations of color 
in these days, some means would be found to keep them from repeating 
the crime against good taste." 

Not only is the coloring of the church fearful and wonderful, but 
the eight domes are cut into the most fantastic forms imaginable, as 
Theophile Gautier has described them, " some beaten into facets, these 
cut into diamond points, like pine-apples, those in spirals ; others, again, 
marked with scales, lozenge-shaped, or celled like a honey-comb." 

The Tower of Ivan Veliki pleased him more. He frequently 
climbed to its top (325 feet) to obtain the grand view of the circling 
city. At its foot rests the famous Czar Kolokol bell (now broken), 
which was tolled at the birth of Peter the Great, but has been unused 
for two hundred years. It is said to weigh about two hundred tons; 
and " imagination's utmost stretch " quails before a contemplation of 
the thunderous tone which it must have pealed forth on the birth of the 
great emperor. 

The bells were ringing In Moscow with a joyful clatter, welcoming 
\h.&fete day of some saint, on Melicent's wedding morning. It was a 
simple wedding, with her dear friends only as witnesses ; and, after it 
was over, they conducted her to her new home, and left her there. No 
reception or display of wedding presents, — though each friend gave 
his or her token of affection, — or bridal tour ; for the life of both bride 
and bridegroom had been full of journeyings, and a quiet home seemed 
the greatest of luxuries. 

After the wedding, Sallie applied herself to her painting. " I can- 
not stir the world with my pen, like James Osborne," she said, " but 
perhaps I can attract the attention of some to Bulgaria in another way. 



J I' 





CHURCH OF VASILI BLAGENNOY. 



MOSCOIV, NIJNI-NOVGOROD, AND THE CRIMEA. 1 99 

Surely, every form of expression, art as well as literature, has its moral 
obligation. I can tell people, with my brush, what I saw in Bulgaria." 
She unrolled the canvases which she had brought from Samokov : 
Marika, with her pathetic look of heavenly sweetness and innocence ; 
Katarinka, with fear and distrust stamped on her handsome features ; 
and murdered Kristo,— with the lamb still in his arms, licking his 
sheltering hands, — and she painted with the inspiration of a new 
purpose. Herr Muller came to Moscow and watched her with surprise. 
" I did not know that you were a genius, Sallie. I am afraid that a 
woman with your talent has no right to be married, and to waste even 
a part of your life on me." 

Sallie laughed lightly. " Don't be jealous of my art. Fritz. I shall 
lay it all aside by and by. It is only for this time, and for a particular 
purpose, that I am so absorbed in it. Be patient a little while, and I 
will give you all the attention you deserve very soon." 

Friedrich Muller pulled his mustache meditatively. " I don't under- 
stand her," he said to himself. " I thought she loved nie, and yet she 
turns me off as though I were of no account whatever." 

Mr. Benton recognized the young man's chagrin, and applied him- 
self to entertaining and becoming acquainted with his prospective son- 
in-law Together they looked up the souvenirs of Napoleon's disastrous 
campaign, -Gus accompanying them, with great delight, to historic 
sites during the day, and reading aloud to them Tolstoi's novel. •' Peace 
and War," and from histories in the evening. The dreadful story- of how 
the areat general, with an army of half a million of men, crossed the 
Niemen in June, 1812, the Russian generals retreating before him. and 
wasting the country as they went, so that the invader could with 
difficulty obtain supplies. Napoleon followed with resolution, thougn 
a hundred thousand of his followers dropped off. He reached Smolensk 
in August, only to find it fired by the inhabitants. On the 7th of 
September he overtook the Russians and fought the battle of Borodino 
Desperately he persevered, and reached Moscow a week later. And 



200 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

again, as in Smolensk, he found that so invincible was the pluck of the 
Russians, that they had destroyed their property rather than allow it to 
fall into the hands of the French. He rested in the city for five weeks, 
endeavoring to refit his army, which was now reduced to a hundred and 
twenty thousand men. Shortly after his arrival, a destructive fire broke 
out, — set by criminals, who had been released for that purpose. 
Nothing was left for him to do but to return ; and now winter had set 
in. His veterans dropped in the snow, dying daily upon the marches. 
The Russians hovered in the rear, harassing his retreat. When he 
crossed the Beresina, on the 27th of November, his magnificent army 
had dwindled to twenty-five thousand. His pride and his power were 
broken. It was a death-blow to both. 

The poet Southey has described the campaign, in one of his minor 
poems, — a satire not so familiar to us as to our fathers. Mr. Benton 
repeated it one evening. He had learned it as a boy, he said, to recite 
m school, merely as a feat of memory, because the nam :s seemed to 
him so unpronounceable and absurd. Many of thest names were 
familiar to the party, as belonging to nobles and generak already dis- 
tinguished, and others were destined soon to come to the front. 

THE MARCH TO MOSCOW. 

BY ROBERT SOUTHEY. 

The Emperor Nap he would set out 
On a summer excursion to Moscow. 
The fields were green and the sky was blue. 

Morbleu ! Parbleu ! 
What a pleasant excursion to Moscow ! 

Four hundred thousand men and more 

Must go with him to Moscow. 

There were marshals by the dozen, 

And dukes by the score, 

Princes a few and kings one or two. 

While the fields were so green and the skies so blue. 

Nothing would do but the whole crew 

Must be marching away to Moscow. 



A/nsCOir, NIJNI-NOVGOROD, AND THE CRIMEA. 20I 

.But the Russians stoutly they turned to, 
Upon the road to Moscow. 
Napoleon had to fight his way all through ; 
They could fight, though they could not parlez-vous. 
But the fields were green and the sky was blue, 
And so he got to Moscow. 

He found the place too warm for him, 

For they set fire to Moscow. 

To get there had cost him much ado, 

And then no better course he knew. 

While the fields were green and the sky was blue, 

But to march back again from Moscow. 

The Russians they stuck close to him 

All on the road from Moscow. 

There was Tomazow and Jemalow, 

And all the others that end in ow ; 
\ Milardovitch and Jaladovitch, 

And Karatschkowitch, 

And all the others that end in itch. 
~ Schamscheff and Sochosaneff 
''' And Schepaleff, 
. And all the others that end in eff. 



And Platoff he played them off, 

And Shouvaloff he shovelled them off, 

And Krosnoff he crossed them off, 

And Tuchkoff he touched them off, 

And Boroskoff he bored them off, 

And Kutousoff he cut them off. 

And Parenzoff he pared them off, 

And Woronzoff he worried them off. 

And Doctoroff he doctored them off, 

And Rodinoff he flogged them off. 

They stuck close to Nap with all their might 

They were on the left and on the right, 

Behind and before, by day and by night, 

And then came on the frost and snow 

All on the road from Moscow. 



202 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

The wind and the weather, he found in that hour, 
Cared nothing for him nor for all his power, — 
Por him who while Europe crouched under his rod 
Put his trust in his fortune and not in his God. 
Worse and worse every day the elements grew ; 
The fields were white and the sky. was blue. 

Sacrebleu ! Ventre-bleu ! 
What a horrible journey from Moscow ! 



1 



During the reading of " Peace and War," the little circle had 
become greatly mterested in the author. " How much I should like to 
meet him ! " Sallie chanced to remark. 

"That can be easily arranged," replied Count Melinoff. "Count 
Leo Tolstoi' was a comrade of mine in the army. I have seen little of 
him since he adopted a literary career, though we were all very proud 
of his honors, and sorry to learn that he had renounced them all for 
the sake of living among the peasants as a peasant, and earning his 
bread by cobbling. His theories would have impoverished him but for 
his excellent wife, who possesses a fortune in her own right, which, 
fortunately, he has not the power to give away. He lives upon her 
estate at Krasnoe, not far from Tasnaya Polyana, If you like, we will 
make an excursion and visit them." 

This visit was among the most pleasant of Sallie's Russian souvenirs. 
A son of the family awaited them at the station, with a carriage, and the 
Countess Tolstoi received them on the steps of her country-house. 
The count, they were told, was ploughing the field of a poor widow, 
who lived near by. The countess was evidently very proud of her 
generous but eccentric husband, and listened with pleasure to the 
praise which her guests rendered of his " Peace and War." She 
showed them his study, with its tool-bench and plain writing-desk. 
The count arrived in time for dinner, and changed his peasant's smock 
for a plain coat. The dinner was an excellent one, — of several 
courses, — but the count was extremely frugal, denying himself wine, 
and even tea. He told them the story of the poor widow whom he 



MOSCOW, NIJNI-NOVGOROD, AND THE CRIMEA. 203 

had been assisting. " Her husband died last winter, and, assisted l)y 
her httle daughter, she buried him, — carrying the cross, which was to 
mark his grave, to the cemetery, — not having money to pay the sexton, 
or any friends to bid to the funeral. That woman has worked all her 
life for a pittance," he said. " What right have I to more ? It is the 
same as if I had inherited a plantation of slaves in your own country. 
What would a Christian do there but renounce them all ? So I renounce 
wealth obtained from the toil of others, and will possess nothing which 
I have not earned, which any one may not earn. It is my understand- 
ing of Christianity." 

Sallie was much impressed by her interview with this singular man ; 
and, on her return to Moscow, painted a sketch of the scene which he 
had described. The countess looked at it v&ry kindly. " Our poor 
women in Russia all bear the cross'] she said simply. 

The count and countess went early to their villa in the Crimea, 
urging the Bentons and Alice to accompany them ; but, as the weather 
was still warm in the south, and Mr. Benton wished to attend the fair 
of Nijni- Novgorod in September, the visit was deferred. 

During their stay at Moscow, Sallie received a letter from Lady 
Saunters, who remembered her talent for painting, and wished to 
secure something of hers as a present for her husband. To Lady 
Saunters, therefore, Sallie sent the picture of Marika, telling her of 
the girl's tragic fate, and asking if she remembered meeting her at 
Ragusa. At the same time she made inquiries as to the means for 
having her painting of Kristo exhibited in London. In due time, 
partly through Lady Saunters, but also on account of its own merit, the 
painting was hung at one of the great exhibitions, where it attracted 
much attention, and helped usher in the strong and popular feeling of 
indignation which followed the report of the Bulgarian massacres. 

Lady Saunters was so strongly moved by it that later she went out 
to Servia, with a party of friends, to assist in establishing an asylum 
for orphans. Alice, who had been watching eagerly for an opportunity 



204 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

to return to the provinces, immediately joined her ; and only her 
parents' urgent remonstrances, and her own feeling that she was perhaps 
doing as valuable work for the cause by her painting, detained Sallie. 
The Servian war had ended ingloriously, only serving to bring much 
suffering upon the unhappy Bulgarians, and as yet none of the foreign 
powers seemed inclined to come to the help of the oppressed princi- 
palities ; and an even deeper cloud of despair seemed to be settling 
upon them. 

In September, the Bentons, Alice Newton, and Friedrich Miiller 
visited Nijni-Novgorod. 

The great annual fair has lost much of its prestige. Merchants no 
longer come from foreign lands in such numbers as formerly to attend 
it, but it is still an event of great interest to the city, and to the stranger 
who desires to become acquainted, at the expense of little travel, with 
the different types of Russians ; for representatives from every part of 
Russia come to Nijni-Novgorod at the time of the fair. The town is 
admirably situated for such a trysting-place. It is not its only advan- 
tage that it is on the Volga, — the great water thoroughfare of Russia, — 
a vast river which has aptly been described as the spinal cord of the 
nation, carrying the currents of life through the immense body, and a 
highway to the Caspian and to Asia. The Oka joins the Volga at 
Nijni, bringing trade from Moscow and the west ; and by an intricate 
system of canals, water communication is obtained with the Baltic, 
through Neva and St. Petersburg, with the White Sea on the north and 
the Euxine on the south. 

Gus was surprised to learn that fifteen thousand vessels ply on the 
Volga alone. A forest of masts framed the city ; and busy tugs were 
towing in the loaded barges with merchandise for the fair. They 
strolled, the first night after their arrival, among the booths, and 
interested themselves in the various types and nationalities of the 
merchants, as well as in the goods which they offered for sale. Here 
were the long-haired, mild-faced men of Moscow, with weapons as 



MOSCOIF, NIJNI-NOVGOROD, AND THE CRIMEA. 



20- 



noted in earlier times as those of 
Damascus ; and close beside them 
were pearl-inlaid and jewelled- 
handled daggers from the Turkish 
dominions. Here were rugs of 
Daghestan, and silks of Bokhara ; 
furs from Siberia, — the softest and 
lightest sables, with creamy ermines, 
and silver and black fox. There were 
wonderful gems in the jewellers' 
bazaars, from the mines of the Urals. 
Alexandrite, with its wonderful em- 
erald and ruby lights, and caskets, 
vases, and tables cut from streaky 
malachite, with gold and silver ware 
enamelled in colors. Not far from 
these choice objects were the fish- 
booths, where pretty girls from 
Pskov, with wonderful structures 
upon their heads, sold caviare and 
other salted fish ; while peasants 
from villages, devoted to the manufac- 
ture of one particular article, brought 
axes or linen goods or leather, as 
the case might be. There was a 
band of Kirghiz in the outskirts, 
with beautiful horses for sale, who 
were carrying on a sort of impromptu 
circus ; and a rival band of Cal- 
muck Tartars from Kazan. Pilgrims 
from the Holy Land offered olive- 
wood rosaries to the devout ; while 




CALMUCK. TARTAR MAI 



L??,^^-^.c^ 



206 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

a nondescript in an Astrakhan cap, who had worn a scarlet fez at the 
opening of the fair, but had found it unpopular, peddled perfumes and 
soaps, and other wares suggestive of Constantinople. Mrs. Benton 
bought some of the famous brick-tea, brought by caravan overland from 
China, and said to be far superior in flavor to that transported by sea. 

On the last evening of their stay at Nijni, they all mounted the Tower 
of Minin, and enjoyed the sparkling panorama of the lighted booths. 

" How well Edna Dean Proctor describes it," said Sallie. " Her 
Russian poems have all of them a reality which spreads the entire 
scene before you, and the ring of life in their cadences, but none more 
so than 

"'THE FAIR AT NIJNI NOVGOROD.' 

" ' Now, by the Tower of Babel, 

Was ever such a crowd ? 
Here Turks and Jews and Gypsies, 

There Persians haughty-browed ; 
With silken-robed Celestials, 

And Frenchmen from the Seine, 
And Khivans and Bokhariotes, 

Heirs of the Oxus plain. 

Here stalk Siberian hunters, 

There tents a Kirghiz clan 
By mournful-eyed Armenians 

From wave-girt Astrakhan ; 
And Russ and Pole and Tartar, 

And mounted Cossack proud, — 
Now, by the Tower of Babel, 

Was ever such a crowd ? ' " 

One day the travellers saw a gang of convicts passing on their way 
to Siberia, and Sallie was reminded of the story which Melicent had 
told her of Natocha, and scanned the sad, hopeless faces, wondering 
if she were of the number. 

Friedrich Miiller was impatient to conduct the party to his sister's 
home at Yalta, and early in October the Bentons, accompanied still by 
Alice, turned their faces southward. 



MOSCOW, NIJNI-NOVGOROD, AND THE CRIMEA. ^Q-J 

The Crimea has rightly been called the Italy of Russia. Here an 
entirely different climate is met, and the olive, the plum, the peach, 
and the date make the peninsula a second Greece. The countess's 
villa was situated half-way between the watering-place of Yalta and the 
royal pleasure resort of Livadia. It hung like a gull's nest to the 
high cliff, whose base was washed by the blue waters of the Euxine, 
and from the sea the white walls of the villa were hardly to be 
distinguished from those of the cliff itself. A staircase cut in the 
rock led down to the lapping water, and was almost sprinkled with 
the spray of a cascade which leaped over the same cliff. On the 
landward side, groves, vineyards, and gardens separated the villa 
from the public drive. It was a lovely spot in which to dream and 
bask in the sun or rest in the shadow and foreet the world. But 
Sallie could not quite forget that there were human beings very 
near, leading far different lives ; and though Friedrich was al\va)-s 
pleading for a ride, or the countess planning an excursion by yacht 
to Balaklava and Sebastopol, or a carriage drive to a grand fete at 
the Emperor's palace at Livadia, Sallie still managed to secure studio 
hours, and to paint. Mr. Benton and Gus made the trip to Sebas- 
topol, and found many interesting traces of the great siege of 1854 
and 1855. Tolstoi has given a most realistic description of the 
fighting here, from the Russian side. The enemy, French and Eng- 
lish, had taken positions on the landward side of the fortress. The 
Russians were shut up in earthworks and bomb-proofs, and endured 
patiently an iron rain of shot and shell, in the hope of a rescue which 
did not come ; for the land forces were beaten at Balaklava and at 
Inkerman. All through the terrible winter and more terrible summer, 
the plucky besieged held out until September, when the Malakof 
redoubt was taken by the French, and the siege was at an end. 
Mr. Geddie states, in his " Russian Empire," that in one single day 
seventy thousand projectiles were thrown into Sebastopol, and the 
thunder of the cannonade was heard for sixty miles around. "One 



2o8 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

of the most singular illustrations of the enormous waste of material 
during the siege is the fact mentioned by Sir E. J. Reed, that the 
Russian Government, by imposing a tax of sixpence per hundred- 
weight on the old metal picked up by the townspeople after the bom- 
bardment, were able to realize the sum of fifteen thousand pounds." 

But the waste of precious life was still more reckless. In the last 
twenty-eight days of the siege Rambaud states that the Russians lost 
eighteen thousand men. Friedrich Miiller was talking over these 
statistics with Sallie, the day after his excursion to Sebastopol. 

"When I think soberly of such a siege as this," he said, "of Napo- 
leon's Russian campaign, and of my own experiences with the German 
army, my reason admits that you are right. War is frightful barbarism. 
But when I turn from these considerations, and look at the pictures you 
are painting, and hear your stories of the barbarities of the Turks, I am 
all on fire. And if the Russians were on the march for Bulgaria, I am 
just as sure that every instinct of a man within me would cry to me to 
enlist in their service. I don't understand, Sallie, what your object is 
in painting such pictures as that, when you declare that you are 
opposed to war." 

" But is there no other means of righting these wrongs, — arbitra- 
tion, Christianity?" 

Friedrich made a gesture of disgust. "Visionary remedies, for 
which the world is not ready. I tell you, Sallie, that you must stop 
concerning yourself about your fellow-men at all, or else be willing td 
die for them." 

" I am willing to die for them," Sallie replied simply, "but do not 
see our right to murder other fellow-beings for them. If I only knew 
what ought to be done ! " 

" Since the problem is too difficult for you, why not wash your 
hands of the entire matter, and let us live for ourselves and for each 
other." 

" That is not worthy of you, Friedrich." 



MOSCOW, NIJNI-NOVGOROD, AND THE CRIMEA. 



209 




" I know it ; but the world is very beautiful, — just here, — and you 
are beautiful, too, Sallie, and I love you, and have given up the life of 
a soldier for you, — and with it all responsibility for righting the wrongs 
of the rest of the world." 

" And I would be very unreasonable not to 
be satisfied. I will paint no more, Friedrich ; 
)ou have showed me that I am only rousing 
people to indignation, without showing them a 
better way." 

But the mischief was done. Friedrich Miiller, 
slow to perceive, slow to move, was moved at 
last. The winter slipped away in the lovely 
Crimea ; and one day in the early spring of 
1877 the family were attending 2l fete at the 
royal palace at Livadia, which was built b}^ 
Count Potocki, in the style of the palace of the 
old Khans of Crim Tartary at Baktchi-Serai. 

Sallie was chatting gayly with a member of Prince Vorontzof's family, 
who had driven over from the prince's Moorish palace at Alupka, — 
an ancient diplomat, full of reminiscences of the Potemkins, the Galit- 
zins, and others. 

"Ah ! " said he, " no opportunities are afforded to our young men 
to gain distinction nowadays. The manly art of war seems to be for- 
gotten. I was discussing a very able article in the Moscow 

[naming James Osborne's paper] with his Imperial Majesty lately. It 
clamored for war, and his Majesty seemed to feel the justice of the 
arguments advanced ; but an emperor is not moved by his own inclina- 
tion, or his own sense of justice even, much less by anything written 
by a literary man, but by considerations of state policy alone.'' 

" His Majesty was graciously pleased to admit to me," said 
Melicent, " that he had once been influenced to a great reform by some- 
thing written by a literary man. Who knows but it ma)- happen again ? " 



THE OLD DIPLOMAT. 



2IO THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

The diplomat twirled his lorgnette in airy incredulity. 

Just then an officer entered the salon : there was a sudden hush, 
and then a buzz as of swarming bees. "What is it?" asked the old 
gentleman. " Only, sir," replied Count Feodor, " that the young 
men of Russia have now an opportunity of earning decorations for 
heroism. The Czar has declared war with the Porte ! " 

Exciting days followed. There had been much discussion as to 
Friedrich Miiller's future manner of life, and it had finally been decided 
that he should emigrate to America and beo^in a mercantile life. But 
from that evening at Livadia his entire bearing changed ; and one day 
he came to Sallie, as she sat in the garden, looking away toward the 
shores of Bulgaria, and, taking her hands, said gravely, " I gave up 
the army for your sake, and I will hold to that renunciation if you still 
demand it. But it is you who have rekindled the war spirit within me ; 
and my brother-in-law has just obtained for me an appointment to 
General Gourko's staff. Shall I accept it ? " 

Sallie turned deadly pale. " It is the only way. You are right. 
There is no hope of any other deliverance for those people. It is a 
war of principle, and I will not keep you back." 



SHIP K A PASS. 



21 I 



CHAPTER XV. 



SHIPKA PASS. 



From the smoking hell of battle, 

Love and pity send their prayer, 
And still thy white-winged angels 

Hover dimly in our air. 

Whittier. 

HOW events seemed to gather themselves into a whirlpool and 
twirl on to one great vortex after this ! 

The beautiful life at the villa was at once broken up, and the 
friends scattered. Count Melinoff and Friedrich, once more Captain 
Mliller, joined the Russian army at Bucha- 
rest. 

Sallie's parting gift to her lover was 
the pair of epaulets which he had sent 
her when he gave up his career for her 
sake. They needed to be only slightly 
changed to be adapted to his new uni- 
form ; and Sallie had embroidered them 
with fresh eold thread, tarnishing their 
brightness slightly with tears, which were 
shed in secret. 

James and Melicent Osborne wrote 
that they had started in the same direc- 
tion, — James Osborne as war correspond- 
ent, and Melicent having taken service 
with the Red Cross. " I must go too," Sallie had said, 
bear to be left behind, and to do nothing." 

"Then," said her father, " I shall go with you. I was a hospital 




THE EPAULETS RETURNED. 

I cannot 




1 

1 



I 



2 12 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

Steward during our own war, and I don't believe I have forgotten my 
profession. We will join your friends at Bucharest, and offer ou 
services to the Red Cross." 

Gus was wild to join the expedition, but his father forbade it 
" Your studies have been interrupted long enough," he said. " You 
must escort your mother back to America, and enter college this 
fall." 

Since Florence Nightingale's administration at the hospital of 
Scutari, woman's place by the side of wounded and dying men has 
been undisputed. Sallie had read the account of the Crimean war 
with great interest. The wounded English soldiers were carried back 
from Sebastopol to Scutari, and here their condition, before the coming 
of the English nurses, is described by an eye-witness. Dr. Hamlin, 
as horrible. " Five thousand patients, in all forms of disease and 
suffering, with not half the force necessary to care for them. The 
smell of the hospital was nauseous, and the sights and sounds were 
such as untrained nerves could not endure. Cursing and praying, the 
maniac's shout or song, and the groans of pain or death, were mingled 
as they never were before. A noble-looking soldier said : ' At ten 
o'clock the lights are put out, and no one comes near us till morning. 
Some are crying, " Water, water ! " some are praying; many are insane ; 
some are dying. Those who ought not to move try to do something in 
the dark for the suffering. Oh, sir ! our nights are terrible.' " 

In this state of the hospital, Mr. Hamlin was informed, " Fancy ! 
some Tvomen have come to take care of this hospital ! Was ever any- 
thing more improper ? I can assure you they won't stay long ! " 

But the women staid. A great reform was inaugurated. " Divid- 
ing the work among them, there was a nurse to each long corridor, 
walking back and forth all night, administering to the wants of sufferers, 
kneeling at the bedside of the dying," and imparting cheer to the 
convalescent. All the world has sung the praises of the woman who 

••■■—-— -~'^- ~", 



I 



SHIPKA PASS. 21^ 

poem of his to Florence Nightingale was written on a page of Sallie's 
journal, with pressed flowers from Sebastopol. 

" How must the soldier's tearful heart expand, 
Who from a long and obscure dream of pain, 
His foeman's frown imprinted on his brain, 
Wakes to thy healing face and dewy hand ! 
When this great noise has rolled from off the land, 
When all those fallen Englishmen of ours 
Have bloomed and faded in Crimean flowers, 
Thy perfect charity unsoiled shall stand ! " 

Sallie knew that the real horrors of war are seen in the hospital, 
not on the field of battle, and her repugnance for such scenes was 
intense. This was the same country in which Florence Nightingale 
had labored : the same terrific climate ; the same Russian camps, with 
their lack of sanitation, on one side, and the only difference lying in the 
fact that the Turks took the place of the English, replacing civilized 
war by savage barbarities. 

She knew that Russian hospitals were worse than English ones. — 
for she had read Tolstoi's account of the Russian side of that terrible 
Crimean campaign, and her courage quailed before the great novelist's 
description of 

" A Russian Hospital. 

^'You have scarcely opened the door before the sickening odor 
emitted from forty or fifty amputations or severe wounds makes you 
gasp for breath. You will behold frightful scenes here. You are 
seeing war, now, without the brilliant accompaniment ot handsomely 
uniformed troops and inspiring music, of standards floating gayly m 
the breeze. You are seeing it as it really is, — in its blood, its 
suffering and death ! The stretcher-bearers were continually bringing 
in new victims and laying them, side by side, in rows on the floor. 
The pools of blood, the feverish breath of several hundred men, 



214 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



created a heavy, fetid atmosphere, in which the candles burned but 
dimly; while a confused murmur of moans, sighs, and death-rattles, 
broken by piercing shrieks, filled the hall." 

But even here an alleviating touch is given to the picture, for the 
author continues, — 



' ^r 




RUSSIAN MILITARY TYPES. 



" Sisters of charity, whose calm faces expressed an active, helpful 
interest, glided quietly about, carrying medicines, water, bandages, and 
lint." 

It was some little time before the Red Cross brigade were called 
to render active service, and Sallie interested herself in watching the 
different types of men mustering to Bucharest, to the command of 
the Grand Duke Nicholas. The Circassian Cossacks, in their red and 



SHIP K A PASS. 2 I 7 

green silk blouses, were certainly the most picturesque, but the 
Cossacks of the Don were more interesting. They were little men, 
with long, straight hair, and shrewd, merry faces, — described by an eye- 
witness as being all great-coat and boots, and more armed than any 
men of their inches in Europe. Their most characteristic weapon was 
the long, black lance ; but they carry also a carbine, a revolver, and a 
curved sword. They rode wiry little ponies, " of indomitable toughness 
and gameness ; fresh when most other horses are knocked up. They 
ride about alone with despatches, and escort suspected spies, keeping the 
head of their lance within easy distance of the small of the suspect's 
back, to be handy for skewering him if he attempted escape." 

Sallie noticed that some of them wore a bit of dried weed twisted 
about their shakos ; and she remembered the superstition described by 
Tolstoi, of the bursting weed, devoutly believed in by the Cossacks of 
the Don. 

It is their custom to imprison a turtle over night, within a small 
palisade of sticks. In the morning it will be found that the captive 
has escaped ; and at the point where he broke through his prison will 
be seen a bit of tangled weed. Take this and preserve it carefully, 
for as long as you wear it no bolts or bars will be able to keep you a 
prisoner. 

After the Cossacks came the infantry in great divisions, making 
long marches across the muddy country, keeping time with long, swing- 
ing strides to their singing, — songs which she could not understand, 
but which ,he felt must mean, — 

" Hail to the day when the Eagles 
And the Cross shall gain their own." 

They had sweet, strong voices, and they sang as if they were inspired, 
forgetting all weariness, and tramping on erect and fresh, when the 
cavalrymen swayed asleep in their saddles. 

Among- the Red Cross nurses, Melicent found an old tricnd, 



2i8 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

Natocha Melniketzky, the suspected Nihilist. "Tell Count Mehnoff," 
she said to Melicent, " that he need feel no uneasiness as to my 
behavior. It was very noble in him to be my security, and I shall not 
abuse his kindness. I have taken the oath of allegiance to the Czar, 
and I shall keep it. Now that I have experienced the kindness of one 
man belonging to the nobility, I feel differently toward the whole 
order." 

Melicent did not explain that it was all a mistake. 

In this period of suspense and preparation, the Red Cross had one 
patient in their hospital tent, whose coming to them happened in this 
wise. At Galatz, a Turkish turret ship was noticed on the Danube, 
followed by two gunboats ; and four tiny Russian torpedo boats were 
sent out to blow it up. These torpedo boats were small steam 
launches, covered with sheet iron and painted black. They pufted 
o-ently along in the dead of night, the noise they made almost drowned 
by the croaking of the great frogs, and undiscovered until two of 
them were just under the great ironclad, when they were challenged ; 
and they heard men running about on deck. The officers on board 
the little launches fastened their torpedoes under the hull of the ship, 
and darted their boats back the length of the electric wire, which 
connected the torpedoes with the battery. The officers established the 
connection of the electric current, and two terrible explosions were 
heard ; a huge volume of water, carrying parts of the shattered ship, 
rose into the air, and a moment later the monitor was seen to be 
sinking ; and presently only her masts, still flying the Crescent flag, 
were seen above the water. Two men were rescued from the doomed 
crew by the Russians, — one died immediately, the other was carried 
in a mangled condition to the hospital. He reported that the name 
of the gunboat was the " Lutfi Djelil," and that she carried two 
hundred men. Sallie did what she could for the poor man. One day 
it occurred to" her to ask him if he knew of Mr. Norcross. The man 
appeared to understand her broken Turkish. Yes, he knew of the 



SHIP K A PASS. 221 

Engrlish Pasha. He was high, hiorh up in the favor of the Sultan, and 
very, very skilful. No torpedo boats would catch him. 

Mr. Osborne was not sure that the man referred to their old 
acquaintance, but thought that he might mean Hobart Pasha, the 
admiral of the Turkish fleet, also an Englishman. Hobart Pasha, who 
has since published his recollections of the Russo-Turkish War, and 
has assured us that if his advice had been taken the Russians would 
not have crossed the Danube as easily as they did. As it was, the 
Turkish fleet caused them much annoyance. 

Sallie wondered if they should hear more definitely from I\Ir. 
Norcross, and a little later they were destined to do so. The Russian 
torpedo boats did effective work in clearing the Danube, and making 
the crossing of the Russian troops a possibility. One Turkish monitor, 
however, gave them a gallant fight. It was attacked by four torpedo 
launches, but with a far different result from that of the affair of 
the " Lutfi Djelil." James Osborne had obtained permission to 
go out with the attacking party, — but the newspaper report of 
this action will be the briefest and the most authentic which we can 
give. 

"This monitor, it soon became evident; was handled and com- 
manded in a very different manner from the others with which the 
Russians had to deal. With wonderful quickness and skill she was 
prepared for action. Her commander began by likewise thrusting out 
torpedoes on the end of long spars, thus threatening the boats with 
the danger of being blown into the air first, at the same time opening 
a terrible fire with small arms and mitrailleuse. He besides tried to 
run the boats down, and very nearly succeeded. The reason soon 
became evident. The commander was a European, and, as the 
Russians believe, an Englishman, who directed the movements from 
the deck. He was plainly visible all the time, and was a tall man. with 
a long, blond beard, parted in the middle. He stood with his hands 
in his pockets, giving orders in the calmest manner possible. 



222 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

"The torpedo boats continued their attempts for more than an 
hour. The monitor, active in trying to run them down, backing and 
advancing, turning and ploughing the water into foam as she pursued 
or avoided her tiny but dangerous adversaries, — a hon attacked by 
rats. One Russian officer, seeing the captain of the monitor coolly 
standing on deck with his hands in his pockets, emptied his revolver 
at him, — three shots, at a distance of not more than forty feet. The 
captain of the monitor, in answer, took off his hat and bowed, not 
having received a scratch. Later, however, the gallant fellow seems 
to have been killed or wounded, for he suddenly disappeared from the 
deck. The monitor immediately afterward retired precipitately from 
the scene of action." 

Sallie was sure that she recognized Mr. Norcross in the chief actor 
in this affair. The only discrepancy was the beard ; and there had 
been time for him to cultivate one. " They that take the sword shall 
perish by the sword," she thought, and then grew startled as she 
realized that this applied also to the Russians, and that Captain Mliller 
might be the next brought in to the hospital. 

The crossing of the Danube was accomplished by the main body 
of the Russians, during the last days of June, at Simnitza, — not without 
hot fighting, however ; for the Turks realized that the Danube was 
their first barrier, and defended it bravely if ineffectually. 

Prince Tcherkasky, the head of the Red Cross organization, had now 
enough to do. Prince Tolstoi' directed the hospitals at Simnitza, where 
fully four hundred wounded were being cared for in an orderly and 
admirable manner ; for as yet the tents were not overcrowded, or the 
nurses overworked. The weather, however, was now intensely hot. 
At Fratesti, on the Bucharest Railroad, two hospital trains, — one from 
Dresden, and one from Moscow, under the charge of the Countess 
Orloff and a staff of trained lady nurses, — waited to convey the 
wounded out of the country ; while a committee of relief, in which 
the Countess Melinoff labored, was busily at work at St. Petersburg. 



SHIP K A PASS. 




T]1E KED CKU6S AT WUKK. 



The Emperor visited the hospitals and distributed thirty crosses of 
St. George, to the most vaHant of the wounded. 

The next barrier to be crossed was the Balkans. Everywhere 
between the Danube and the mountains, the Russian army was received 



2 24 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

by the Bulgarians with acclamations of extravagant joy. Church-bells 
which had not been rung for centuries pealed forth their welcome 
clamorously. Processions of girls in white, singing songs, and of 
children, bearing garlands of flowers, headed by the clergy with 
banners and censers, — and in one instance with an illuminated Bible, 
which had been hidden for years in a monastery, — streamed out to 
meet the army. 

James Osborne, as he rode beside General Skobelefl", said triumph- 
antly, as the chief men kissed his hands, " Did I not tell you that I 
would come again with the Russians ? " 

But the Turks, though they had retreated from Rustchuk with their 
commander-in-chief, Abdul Kerim, were not beaten. They were 
watching their opportunity, which they believed would come when the 
Russians attempted to storm Shipka Pass. Osman Pasha, too, was 
hastening from the west to Plevna, ready to fall upon the rear of the 
Russians, should they advance too recklessly ; while Suleiman Pasha, 
who had been victorious in Montenegro, had just been transported by 
the Turkish fleet, with his army of forty thousand men, from the coast 
of Albania to Salonica (a distance of eight hundred miles, in twelve 
days), and was now waiting, ready for action, at Adrianople. (See map 
on interior of covers.) 

The Russians, after crossing the Danube, separated into three 
divisions : that on the right, commanded by General Krudener, swept 
the country toward the southwest, while that on the extreme left, under 
the Czarewitch, performed the same oflice toward the southeast. The 
central column, commanded by General Gourko, was to attempt the 
crossing. He knew that Shipka Pass was strongly fortified by 
the Turks, and he deputed Prince Tserteleff to discover some other 
pass which would be practicable for artillery. It chanced that the 
Prince, who had met Melicent at St. Petersburg, discovered her among 
the Red Cross nurses on the very day that he was intrusted with this 
perilous duty. He informed her of his commission, and she immedi- 



SHIPKA PASS. 



2 2 7 



ately told him of the Hainkoi Pass, throucrh which SalHc and James 
Osborne had come on their flight from r3ulgaria. The Prince listened 
attentively, and, disguised as a Bulgarian peasant, he went in search of 
it. The Bulgarians were everywhere helpful, and, to his delight, he 
found it unfortified. And, though the roadway had been broken in 
upon by mountain torrents, with a very litde engineering he saw that 
it could be made passable for the light field-cannon, and even for 
baggage-trains. He accordingly returned and reported his success to 
General Gourko, who, leaving a division to advance on Shipka Pass 
from the north, under Prince Mirsky, hastened across the mountains by 
the Hainkoi Pass, to the attack of Shipka from the rear. One division 
of the Red Cross was now domiciled at the convent near Gabrova, 
where Sallie and Alice had been entertained on their fliofht from Eski 
Zaofra. 

The Damascus roses were blossoming in the greatest profusion in 
the cloister garden, but the nuns had other work now than the prepara- 
tion of attar. 

James Osborne galloped into the courtyard on the 15th of July, 
and reported that Gourko had advanced by the Hainkoi. " He will be 
across the Balkans to-morrow. Captain JMUller is in the advance," he 
said to Sallie. " Gourko has given him an important position. He 
has sent you this note, for he could not come to say farewell. I am 
off to join them. And as I am free to ride where I will, )ou ma)- 
expect me in a few days, with news of the victory." 

He was gone, and Sallie, half-dazed, read the note, — 
" LiEBCHEN, — I am off over the pass which you know so well. 
The fact that you have crossed through it will make it very dear to me. 
I go with high hopes and good omens. One of our men — a Don 
Cossack — gave me a scrap of 'bursting weed' this morning, and I 
have fastened it in my helmet, so, of course, we shall burst through. 

" Farewell, 

" Thy Fkiedrich." 



2 28 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

Sallie waited in deep anxiety, but one morning James Osborne 
came with the promised news. The daring raid was a brilHant success. 
The Turks had not thought of this deep, wild gorge, and had left it 
absolutely unguarded. So faithful were the Bulgarians that not a man, 
woman, or child betrayed the coming of the Russians. And though 
three battalions of Turkish soldiers passed the southern extremity of 
the defile that night, they did not suspect that eleven thousand Russians 
were camping, without fires, in that tortuous ravine. 

The next morning the army poured into the plain below, and 
re-enforced by the Bulgarian legion, which Trajan Evanova and men who 
like him had " Batak ! " for their watchword had been gathering at 
Kezanlik, were enthusiastically greeted and entertained by the Bul- 
garians of this town. The next day the attack was made upon the 
rear of Shipka, a complete surprise to the Turks, who had been 
fighting all the preceding day with Prince Mirsky's division, and who 
now surrendered, after a sharp combat. Abdul Kerim was a broken 
man, soon to be degraded from his post as commander. Shipka Pass 
was won and refortified, — its guns pointing to the south. It was a 
brilliant achievement, — a marvel of strategy and heroic valor. En- 
couraged by the success of his dashing raid, General Gourko descended 
from the mountains, and scoured the country to the south, ignorino- 
the fact that the main Russian army was still on the other side of the 
Balkans, where they were destined to He before Plevna for many weary 
months, while Suleiman Pasha, with his forty thousand reserves, — 
redifs and spahis, the flower of the Turkish army, — as well as the 
ferocious Bashi-Bazouks, — were waiting for work to do. Gourko 
marched on the 29th of July, for forty miles, and fought the Turks at 
the railroad station of JenI Zagra, taking It, and destroying an immense 
mass of stores. The next day he attempted to return to EskI Zagra, not 
knowing that Suleiman Pasha's men had fallen upon the town and 
were wreaking on It a terrible revenge for its friendly reception of the 
Russians. Not till Gourko had come in sight of the city was he 



SHIP K A PASS. 229 

warned of what was going on. Even then he wished to pass on to the 
help of the Bulgarian -legion, who had come out so nobly to his aid, 
and who were beset in the city. But he saw at a glance that this 
would be simply to throw away his men, and he made a hasty retreat 
back by the Hainkoi Pass. As for the poor Bulgarian legion, it fought 
its way back to Shipka, beginning its retreat with sixteen hundred 
men, and only between four and five hundred reaching the fortifications. 
Shipka Pass was gained, but at what a price ! The wounded men 
brought over the terrible Hainkoi Pass, in jolting carts, died by the 
wagon-load, before they could be transferred to the hospital. Gourko 
had lost three thousand men, exclusive of the Bulgarians. Captain 
MiAller brought up the rear, as he had before led the advance. The 
sun poured down its blazing rays, as they traversed the long plain 
before striking into the shadowy gorge. He thought of the cool 
ferns ; and the drip, drip of the little brook seemed to be sounding in 
his ears. His eyes felt baked in their sockets, and his brain swam 
with sleeplessness. Should they never reach the shadows? He lifted 
his helmet to allow the passage of the air, and the crisp, curling leaves 
of the dried bursting weed crumbled and fell in powder. The dust was 
rising on the plain in the rear. Horsemen were galloping toward 
them. Were they Bulgarians, or Bashi-Bazouks ? There was a litde 
puff of smoke along the line, and he reeled in his saddle, clutched at 
his horse's mane and fell. He was the last man in the column, and the 
others did not hear or did not heed. Even his horse did not stop 
and stand over him with the proverbial faithfulness universally 
ascribed to that intelligent animal. It trotted carelessly on, after its 
comrades. He could hear their hoof-beats growing fainter, fainter, and 
then the earth and all therein seemed to fall away from under him. — 
dying was easier than he had thought ! He tried to sa)-. " O God ! lor 
Christ's sake pardon my offences." But he was conscious that he only 
thought the prayer, that he had lost the power of speech ; another 
instant and thoueht had crone too. 



2^0 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

PLEVNA, AND THE PASSAGE OF THE BALKANS. 

SALLIE was very busy at Gabrova, for the convent was filled now 
with Gourko's wounded. She had wondered, shudderingly, if she 
might not see Friedrich Miiller's face looking up to her from one of 
the stretchers which the men brought in, and had thanked God that all 
were strangers. He had not come back with Gourko, she knew, but 
she believed him to be at Shipka, until James Osborne came back from 
the fort one day, and inadvertently inquired for him. He knew by her 
sudden pallor that Captain Miiller was among the lost three thousand. 

" He did not come back with his division. He is not among the 
wounded. He is not at Shipka ? Then he must be dead ! " She 
spoke very steadily. But James Osborne was not deceived by her 
self-possession. " Perhaps he has been taken prisoner," he suggested. 
She smiled incredulously. " The Turks take no prisoners," she said 
calmly, and then she turned to the poor Cossack with the gangrened 
hand, and by long and patient argument persuaded him to its 
amputation. 

The hospital at Gabrova had thinned. Some patients had recovered, 
a few had died, more were able to be sent to Bucharest. The cots lay 
white and vacant, and now news came of terrible fighting at Plevna. 

Baron Krudener had committed the blunder of letting Osman 
Pasha and his army occupy this fine strategical point, and now, though 
nearly the entire Russian force was pitted against the city, they found 
it impossible to dislodge him. There was incessant work upon parallels 
and intrenchments creeping nearer and nearer the city. There were 
terrific bombardments. There were Turkish sallies, and redoubts taken 



PLEVXA, AND THE PASSAGE OF THE BALK A AS. 233 

by the bayonet. But the summer dragged on to its close, and Osman 
was still unsubdued. The Czar watched the charges with his field- 
glass, and inspected the lines. The most skilful generals discussed 
the situation in their councils of war. It would never do to march on 
to the south and leave Osman behind them. Plevna must be taken 
before the main army could cross the Balkans. And Gourko and 
Skobeleff were dashing around Plevna, cutting off Osman's commu- 
nication with the south, and trusting to the co-operation of the great 
siege-general — Starvation — to help reduce the city. But the city 
was evidently well provisioned, and it held out as pluckily as Pans 
had done in the Franco- Prussian War, hoping for re-enforcements, 
and for the coming of the Field Marshal Winter, to blockade the 
Balkan roads and drive the Russians back. A second campaign, the 
Czar knew, would bankrupt his treasury. The fighting must be 
finished this winter, and the weary siege continued. There was good 
news from Asia, where Mukhtar Pasha, who had fought in Herzegovina, 
was defending Erzeroum, and, it was thought, must soon surrender. 
But frightful storms were swirling down on the Balkans, and might 
render them impassable, and the Russians pushed forward the siege 
with fierce determination. Every day added to the Russian wounded 
in all the Red Cross hospitals, to which they were forwarded In" the 
surgeons at the front. There was a batde on August 30, resulting in 
a second defeat ; and a third unsuccessful attack in the presence of 
the Czar, on September 11. Finally, on the night of December 10. 
Osman Pasha, his supplies exhausted, and his outer defences captured, 
made a desperate sortie. The batde lasted from daybreak until no(.n. 
Much of the time hand to hand — a bayonet contest over the guns ot 
the Russians. But the Turks were driven back, and. in the afternoon, 
Osman surrendered, and was brought, wounded and a prisoner, before 
the Czar. Plevna had fallen. The Turkish prisoners of war were sent 
to Roumania and to Russia, and the Russian army was dcliricnis with 
joy. All but the dead, who lay unburied in the trenches, and the 



234 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



wounded, who waited for attention, and could not be transferred fast 
enough to the hospitals. But if the condition of the Russian wounded 
was distressing, it was not to be compared with the horrible state of 
things in the Turkish hospitals in Plevna. When the Turks made their 
sortie, all the hospital attendants followed them, and the sick and 
wounded were left for three days without care or service. When the 
Russians finally assumed this duty, over a thousand had died from 







FORGOTTEN. 



neglect, and were lying beside the living, many of whom were too far 
gone to be helped by the tardy aid. There was work enough for the 
Red Cross at Gabrova now. And, though Sallie's heart was almost 
breaking with her own trouble, she let her tears fall in secret, and 
labored steadily on. James Osborne worked with the surgeons at the 
front, in distributing food to the famishing prisoners. One starving 
crone was so crazed by her sufferings that she cursed him, even while 
she snatched at the provisions. He labored, too, in the over-crowded 
hospital-tents, where the wounded received their first temporary treat- 



PLEVNA, AND THE PASSAGE OF THE llALKANS. 



v-»D 



ment, and in front of which they la)-, in long- rows, waiting for attention, 
with that pathetic look of uncomplaining patience in their eyes which 
has been so admirably depicted in the great picture of this scene, by 
the Russian artist Verestchagin. One day he appeared, with a detach- 
ment of wounded, at the hospital where Sallie was working. He was 
shocked by her changed appearance, — 
her sunken eyes and thin, trembling hands. 
" You will kill yourself! " he cried. " You 
are over-working cruelly." 

" I suppose I do not sleep enough," 
she replied. " But how can one sleep 
when there is so much to be done ? I 
am working- in the fever- ward." 



" Yes, and you will take it yourself, 
and we shall lose a valuable nurse. You 
require an immediate change. I am going 
to cross the Balkans with Skobeleff. We 
can take a very few nurses, with two am- 
bulances. Will you come with us ? There will be work enough to 
do when we reach the other side, — perhaps before." 

" Yes, let me go," Sallie replied. " Friedrich is across the 
Balkans." 

James Osborne looked up quickly. Had she an)- hope ? She 
spoke too steadily for that. 

"My poor child!" he said, "you have suffered cruelly, but have 
faith. All of this death means the resurrection of the land, and )-ou 
have given and done for that end all that woman can." 

" If I could have your faith," Sallie said, " that such evil means 
could ever work out a good end." 

"' Bate not one jot of faith and hope,'" said James Osborne cheerily. 
" ' It is always the darkest just before day.' And Alice is over the 
Balkans somewhere. You know Lady Strangfortl wi-nt out from 




TURKISH CRONE. 



)36 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



1 



England and organized a society like ours, for the care of the Turkish 
wounded, called the Red Crescent. Lady Saunters and Alice are 
working in it ; and if we may judge of other Turkish hospitals by 
those of Plevna, they have more to do than we." 

Heavy storms delayed for a time the advance ; but on Christmas 
Day, General Gourko, with an army of thirty thousand men, set out 
for a second crossing of the Balkans, via Sofia and Trajan's Pass, 
while General Skobeleff led his men to a second storming of Shipka 
Pass, which had been retaken by Suleiman Pasha. Both movements 
were successful, though performed in the face of terrific storms. The 
men wore great-coats with pointed hoods pulled over their heads, and 
icicles hung from their mustaches, giving them the appearance of so 
many Santa Clauses. 

A band of medical students were given their choice of going 
behind or marching on foot, and unanimously chose to take their 
chances with the infantry, and were on hand and did noble service at 
the next battle. 

Sallie made the crossing with two Sisters of Charity, perched on the 
top of a wagon loaded with knitted socks, waistbands, and jerseys, 
which she helped distribute to the frost-bitten men. Sentries were 
frozen to death, and hundreds of men on the hospital, list with frost- 
bitten hands and feet. 

There was hard fighting at Shipka Pass again, and many wounded ; 
and it was long before Sallie reached Kezanlik, now occupied by Prince 
Mirsky, but only the wreck of the beautiful town through which she 
had passed on leaving the country. 

How could James Osborne maintain such an unwavering and cheer- 
ful faith through it all ! Her hand stole to her pocket Testament. 
She would read a little from that wonderful chapter on faith. 
" Women received their dead raised to life again," were the first words 
that greeted her.. And she smiled bitterly, for the verse seemed to 
mock at her. " Oh, yes ! it were easy to have faith on such terms. 



rLEVNA, AND THE PASSAGE OE THE BALKANS. 



-o/ 



But of how many of the poor women about her could tliis be said ? " 
She read on, "And others were tortured." Here at last was something 
for her. " Not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better 
resurrection." That was what James Osborne had meant — the resur- 
rection of the nation. Over one of the shattered houses the Red 




''«Wii!ilfe«# 



RELIEVING THE GUARD AT SHIPKA. 

Crescent was flying. Some one stood in the doorless aperture, — 
some one who was not a Turk, though he wore a scarlet fez, and a 
crescent of the same color on his arm. Nor was he a Russian, though 
the rest of his dress was that of a European. From a distance the 
figure seemed familiar, and as he turned she recognized the face of 
Algernon Saunters. He came forward and greeted her with grave 
politeness. "My mother is within," he said, "and your friend Alice 



238 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 



Newton. Come in and rest. You are ill. You are only the shadow 
of your former self ! " 

" That is just what I was thinking of you," Sallie replied with a 
faint smile. 

Lady Saunters and Alice greeted Sallie warmly. And they sat 
down together in a room which had been a stable, and was now used 
as the hospital kitchen, and talked over the experiences of the 
campaign, and the outlook for the future. 

''The war is virtually ended," said Algernon. "Now that the 
Russians have passed the Balkans, Suleiman Pasha and his army are 
fleeing for Constantinople, with Gourko in hot pursuit. Peace negotia- 
tions will soon begin." 

" And what has this poor country gained ? " Sallie asked 
mournfully. 

"The country is impoverished," Alice replied. "O Sallie! you 
should see the deserted homes which I have visited, and hear the 
poor women, who have crept back to them, wailing by their hearth- 
stones, * Oh, my sweet home ! my sweet home ! Oh, my husband ! 
my dear husband ! Oh, my children ! my pretty children ! ' There are 
some who have lost all. The English and Americans have collected 
the orphans from Batak and other desolated villages, and are caring 
for them. Mr. Schuyler obtained a list of eighty-seven children, who 
had been sold, and has had them given up. I saw many of them at 
Philippopolis. And little Ghiorghy and Anghel, the younger brothers 
of poor Marika and Katarinka, were among them." 

" Perhaps," said Sallie, " as James Osborne hopes, a new national 
life will be born from all this struggle. But it seems hardly possible 
that its advantages will be such as to repay for all this horror of 
bloodshed and suffering." 

"The future will tell," said Algernon sadly. " I confess that I am 
not over-sanguine. But of one thing I am certain : if the civilized 
world at large could only realize what this war has meant, what any 



PLEVA'A, AND THE PASSAGE OF 7 HE BALKANS. 239 

war means, this would be the last sanctioned by Christian countries, 
and arbitration would be instantly a^-reed upon." 

They were silent for a few moments. Lady Saunters and Alice had 
hurried away to their patients, and at length Algernon asked, " Do you 
know what brought me here? I resigned my position in the India 
service, on account of a disordered liver. To have told the truth, 
the resignation should have read, a disordered conscience. Your talk 
at Athens rankled within me like slow poison. And when this war 
was declared, I came home to see if I could not get a diplomatic posi- 
tion. I think I shall have one when affairs are settled, and I'll do 
my best to heal these wounds. But, meantime, I could find nothing 
better to do than to come out here with mother. They call the 
English Turkish sympathizers, and, I confess, we do sympathize with 
their sufferings. You must see our hospital. We have one patient 
who ought to be transferred to the Red Cross, — a young Russian, — 
who has lain for months between life and death." 

" A Russian in a Turkish hospital ! How was that possible ?" 

•" Only through guile on my part. The story may interest you. 
You remember Norcross ? " 

" The thief and renegade ? Yes ! " 

" Hush ! the poor fellow is dead. He was wounded at the begin- 
ning of the war, on the Danube. He was brouo-ht on his ironclad 
to Burgas ; and, hearing there that there were English physicians 
here, he refused to submit himself to Turkish surgeons, and insisted 
on being transported to our hospital. W'e did our best to save him. 
But his wound had been too long neglected. And he died on the 
night that the Bashi-Bazouks retook this place, and slaughtered the 
Bulgarian legion in the streets. It was a horrible night. And he 
heard the cries and shouts as he lay dying. Our attendants deserted 
us. But the hospital was not disturbed. Two days later a Bulgarian 
swineherd told me that he had found a wounded Russian officer. — 
one of Gourko's men, lost on his retreat to the Balkans, and had 



240 THREE VASSAR GIRLS IN RUSSIA AND TURKEY. 

hidden him in his hut. I went out with the man after nightfall with a 
stretcher, and brought him in, having first dressed him as a Turk. 
He was blond, and unmistakably European in appearance. But we 
laid him on Norcross's pallet, and when the attendants came back they, 
and all Turks who visited the hospital, believed that he was the White 
Pasha. He is recovering rapidly now. Come and see him, for he 
belongs to you." 

Sallie turned quickly. " What did you say ? " , 

"I mean that he is a Russian, and, as such, should be transferred I 

to your hospital." \ 

Sallie did not hear, but followed quickly. On a pallet was stretched j 

the gaunt form of the man she had mourned as dead. He was sleeping, | 

and she sunk noiselessly upon her knees by his side. Algernon looked i 

at her in astonishment. " You were right. He belongs to me," \ 

she said simply. "In spite of my little faith, I have received my , 

dead raised to life again." i 

Algernon Saunters knew instantly that his hope was vain. 1 

Meanwhile, James Osborne had taken the camp-fever, and lay dying, j 

He heard the booming of the cannon, as they celebrated the declaration j 

of peace, and asked, " Are they fighting again ? " ; 

" No," said Melicent, " the End has come, and Bulgaria is free ! " 

A sunny smile swept over his face. "Then, how can you ask, my I 

wife, whether it has all paid ? " 

But Melicent, a widow when scarcely a bride; and Sallie, who ; 
tasted the same cup of sorrow, though it was mercifully removed ; : 
and Alice, who saw her lessons of love, forgiveness of injuries, and 
meekness, rudely set aside, and revenge paraded as the Christian ' 
mode of solving difficulties ; and thousands of bereaved women and . 
children ask, — Is there no better way ? 



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